Quarrel & Quandary: Essays - Hardcover

The distinguished author of The Puttermesser Papers presents a new collection of essays in which she explores some of the world's finest writers and their works, from Dostoevsky to William Styron; analyzes contemporary literary and moral issues; and discusses her own relationship with literature and the formative experiences of her life as an author. 15,000 first printing.

ollection of essays, Cynthia Ozick, everywhere acclaimed as a critic, novelist, and storyteller, examines some of the world's most illustrious writers and their work, tackles compelling contemporary literary and moral issues, and looks into the wellsprings of her own lifelong engagement with literature.

She writes--quarrelsomely--about Crime and Punishment, about William Styron's Sophie's Choice, about the Book of Job. She inquires into the subterranean dispositions and quandaries of Kafka and Henry James. She discusses the difficulties inherent in the translation of great books, whether into film or into another language.

She explores what she calls "the selfishness of art" and courts controversy with her views on The Diary of Anne Frank and its transformation for the stage. Her reflections on the "rights of history" and the "rights of imagination" tap a profound concern for truth in regard to the Holocaus