John Berger: A Reading List

Storyteller, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, dramatist and critic, John Berger was one of the most internationally influential writers of the last fifty years. Here we present a reading list of titles by or about Berger, including Joshua Sperling's new biography of Berger, in which he draws on first-hand, unpublished interviews and archival sources only recently made available, as well as Berger's own writings on art, politics, poetry and more.

The first intellectual biography of the life and work of John Berger.

What does art tell us about ourselves? John Berger on the politics and consolations of creativity.

A lifetime’s encounter with artists: from prehistoric cave painting to the present.

Poetry from former national poet of Palestine, illustrated by original drawings by Berger.

From the War on Terror to resistance in Ramallah and traumatic dislocation in the Middle East, Berger explores the uses of art as an instrument of political resistance. 

In this illustrated color book Berger uses the imaginative space he creates to explore the process of drawing, politics, storytelling and Spinoza’s life and times.

Why does the Western world look to migrant laborers to perform the most menial tasks? What compels people to leave their homes and accept this humiliating situation? In A Seventh Man, Berger and Jean Mohr come to grips with what it is to be a migrant worker—the material circumstances and the inner experience—and, in doing so, reveal how the migrant is not so much on the margins of modern life, but absolutely central to it. 

A beautiful edition of John Berger's first novel, a passionate exploration of the artistic process, and a gripping detective story.

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.

A beautifully imagined story of love and resistance, by one of the foremost novelists of our age.

Published in conjunction with Stop the War coalition and United for Peace and Justice, War With No End provides an urgent, necessary reflection on the causes and consequences of the ideological War on Terror, including pieces by Phyllis Bennis, John Berger, Naomi Klein, Hanif Kureishi, Tram Nguyen, Arundhati Roy, Joe Sacco, Ahdaf Soueif, and Haifa Zangana.

A Writer of Our Time

by Joshua Sperling

John Berger was one of the most influential thinkers and writers of postwar Europe. As a novelist, he won the Booker Prize in 1972, donating half his prize money to the Black Panthers; as a TV pres...

Landscapes

by John Berger

In this brilliant collection of diverse works—essays, short stories, poems, translations—which spans a lifetime’s engagement with art, John Berger reveals how he came to his own unique way of see...

Portraits

by John Berger

John Berger, one of the world’s most celebrated storytellers and writers on art, tells a personal history of art from the prehistoric paintings of the Chauvet caves to 21st century conceptual artis...

Mural

by Mahmoud Darwish

Introduction by John Berger

Translated by John Berger and Rema Hammami

Mural is the testimony of one of the most important and powerful poets of our age.Mahmoud Darwish was the unofficial laureate of Palestine. One of the greatest poets of the last half-century, his w...

Hold Everything Dear

by John Berger

From the ‘ War on Terror’ to resistance in Ramallah and traumatic dislocation in the Middle East, Berger explores the uses of art as an instrument of political resistance. Visceral and passionate, ...

Bento's Sketchbook

by John Berger

The seventeenth-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza (a.k.a. Bento) spent the most intense years of his short life writing. He also carried with him a sketchbook. After his sudden death, his friends ...

A Seventh Man

by John Berger

Why does the Western world look to migrant laborers to perform the most menial tasks? What compels people to leave their homes and accept this humiliating situation? In A Seventh Man, John Berger a...

A Painter of our Time

by John Berger

Exiled in London, the Hungarian artist Janos Lavin disappears one day, into thin air. His journal offers his friend John the only clues to where he has gone, and why. John Berger’s first novel is a...

From A to X

by John Berger

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 ...

War With No End

by Phyllis Bennis, John Berger, Naomi Klein, Hanif Kureishi, Tram Nguyen, Arundhati Roy, Joe Sacco, Ahdaf Soueif and Haifa Zangana

Introduction by Lindsey German and Judith le Blanc

On October 7th 2001, US-led forces invaded Afghanistan, marking the start of George Bush and Tony Blair’s “War on Terror.” Six years on, where have the policies of Bush and Blair left us? Bringing ...

Filed under: versoreadinglists