Synopses & Reviews
By now a modern classic, The Gift is a brilliantly orchestrated defense of the value of creativity and of its importance in a culture increasingly governed by money and overrun with commodities. Widely available again after twenty-five years, this book is even more necessary today than when it first appeared. An illuminating and transformative book, and completely original in its view of the world, The Gift is cherished by artists, writers, musicians, and thinkers. It is in itself a gift to all who discover the classic wisdom found in its pages.
Review:
“The best book I know of for talented but unacknowledged creators. . . . A masterpiece.”
Margaret Atwood
Review:
“A manifesto of sorts for anyone who makes art [and] cares for it.”
Zadie Smith
Review:
“This long-awaited new edition of Lewis Hyde's groundbreaking and influential study of creativity is a cause for across-the-board celebration.”
Geoff Dyer
Synopsis:
Discusses the argument that a work of art is essentially a gift and not a commodity.
Synopsis:
This 25th anniversary edition returns to the seminal argument originally proposed by Hyde that states that a work of art is essentially a gift and not a commodity.
About the Author
Lewis Hyde was born in Boston in 1945 and studied at both Minnesota and Iowa universities. His hugely acclaimed essay, "Alcohol and Poetry: John Berryman and the Booze Talking," in part sprang out of his experiences as an alcoholism counselor, but he is also a highly regarded poet in his own right whose poetry and essays have been widely published. He is a MacArthur Fellow, a former director of creative writing at Harvard and, alongside
The Gift, he is the author of the equally acclaimed
Trickster Makes This World. He lives in Ohio, where he is completing a third book.
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