John Berger (Critical Lives)

Characterized by an independent, anti-institutional approach to creativity, British essayist, novelist and art critic John Berger has been an inspiring force in mainstream and alternative culture alike. His groundbreaking book of art criticism, Ways of Seeing, accompanied a four-part BBC television series that presented a radical new interpretation of Western cultural aesthetics and the study of images. In the same year, Berger’s experimental novel G. was awarded the Booker Prize for fiction, extending his reputation as a boundary-pushing writer and thinker.In this account of Berger’s work and way of life in the French Savoy countryside, Andy Merrifield sheds light on Berger the man, the artist and the concerned citizen. Berger is a figure who strives constantly to open up new possibilities while also infusing even his most intellectual work with deep feeling. Berger sees reality like the irrationalist Rousseau, yet is also a meticulous realist, probing objects as critically and rationally as Spinoza. Stitching together art, literature and politics, this book is a freewheeling narrative that offers fascinating insights into one of the most respected thinkers of our time.