STILL MOMENT

by Paul Binding

First published in 1994, Paul Binding's portrait of Eudora Welty is being reissued to coincide with the 100th anniversary of her birth.Eudora Welty was a Pulitzer Prize winner and recipient of numerous literary friendships and awards. She was one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth-century. Born in 1909 in Jackson, Mississippi. Eudora Welty was brought up in the harsh American South when it was bedevilled both by the Depression and racial discrimination. Her acclaimed novels and short stories however are imbued with compassion and optimism, while also revealing her extraordinary gift for inhabiting the inner world of her characters.Paul Binding knew Eudora Welty, and in this book he draws on the many conversations he had with both her and her friends and fellow writers. The Still Moment presents a critical portrait of a remarkable mind and a profoundly humanist writer.

320 pages, Hardcover

First published May 12, 1994

About the author

Paul Binding (b. 1943) is a novelist, critic, poet and cultural historian. After spending his early childhood in Germany, he returned to be educated in England and studied English Literature at Oxford. He has been a lecturer at universities in Sweden, Mississippi, and Italy and was a managing editor for Oxford University Press and an editor for the New Statesman. His first novel, Harmonica’s Bridegroom (1984), was well reviewed by critics and earned accolades from novelists James Purdy and Brian Moore. Other novels have included Kingfisher Weather (1989); My Cousin the Writer (2006), chosen as book of the year by Francis King and deemed a ‘masterpiece’ by the Spectator; and, most recently, the critically acclaimed After Brock (2012).

Besides his novels, Binding frequently contributes reviews to The Independent, The Times Literary Supplement, and others, and is the author of several non-fiction works, including Lorca: The Gay Imagination (1985), St. Martin’s Ride (1990) (a memoir), Eudora Welty: Portrait of a Writer (1994), and a study of the artist in Ibsen (2006).

For more than twenty years, Binding has been involved with the promotion of Scandinavian literature and culture. His latest work, Hans Christian Andersen: European Witness, is forthcoming from Yale University Press in April 2014. He lives in Shropshire.

Reviews

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Binding has profound insights into the works of Eudora Welty. He examines each book to show how her writing process and experiences as a photographer and observer of human nature, as well as her acute listening skills for dialog, enabled her to create masterpieces of American literature. For any lover of Welty's short stories and novels, this is a helpful assessment. He elevates her to the place in literature where she belongs, as among the greatest contributors to American literature in the 20th century.