From A to X: A Story in Letters
In the dusty, ramshackle town of Suse lives A’ida. Her insurgent husband Xavier has been imprisoned. Resolute, sensuous and tender, A’ida’s letters to the man she loves tell of daily events in the town, and of its motley collection of inhabitants whose lives flow through hers. But the town is under threat, and as a faceless power inexorably encroaches from outside, so the smallest details and acts of humanity assume for A’ida a life-affirming significance, acts of resistance against the forces that might otherwise extinguish them.
Paperback, 198 pages
ISBN: 9781844673612
April 2009
$13.95 / £7.99
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Reviews
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An exquisitely written and constructed novel.
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Wrought with a miniaturist's precision.
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John Berger has given us an exquisite thing. This is a book of controlled rage sculpted with tools of tenderness and a searing political vision.
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From A to X is one of the most tender and poignant books I have read for many years. Its power rests in its economy of means, its account of enduring love surviving oppression. It demonstrates that however foul the forces oppressing us, love and the human spirit are indestructible.
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The record of one restless, committed, brilliant consciousness; a late showcase of astonishing range and depth, which should be read as an epic poem or lyrical essay as much as a novel.
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John Berger at the BFI
To commemorate the 40th anniversary of John Berger's influential Ways of Seeing, the groundbreaking book and television series which have become staples of art critcism, the British Film Institute is staging a series of screenings and events based upon the author's small-screen films.
Berger's stunning series explored the history of representation in Western art, interrogating well-worn tropes of classical art education with a razor-sharp Marxist critique. The book and series cemented Berger's role as one of Britain's most lucid and engaging cultural critics, a role he continues to fill today with his challenging, sharply-written books on aesthetics, culture and contemporary politics, including Hold Everything Dear and Bento's Sketchbook.
As well as screening the original Ways of Seeing in it's entirety, the BFI season also features his early television work for BBC's Monitor and Granada TV, and runs throughout April. A selection of Berger's books will also be on sale at the event.
Visit BFI Online for more information on the series.
Discussions
Begin a discussionOther books by John Berger
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Bento's Sketchbook
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A meditation, in words and images, on the practice of drawing, by the author of Ways of Seeing.
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A Seventh Man
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New edition of this seminal exploration of migrant workers.
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Corker's Freedom
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"A contemporary masterpiece"—New York Review of Books
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A Painter of our Time
by John Berger
A beautiful new edition of John Berger's first novel.
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Hold Everything Dear: Dispatches on Survival and Resistance
by John Berger
A powerful meditation on political resistance from one of the most original and influential thinkers of our times.
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War With No End
by Phyllis Bennis, John Berger, et al.
Writers and activists consider the global consequences of the War on Terror.