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Ann Wroe, obituaries editor for The Economist, reflects on the art and impossibility of capturing life on the page. Through her experiences and through people she has known, studied, or merely glimpsed in windows, she movingly explores what makes a life and how that life lingers after.
Ann Wroe, obituaries editor for The Economist, reflects on the art and impossibility of capturing life on the page. Through her experiences and through people she has known, studied, or merely glimpsed in windows, she movingly explores what makes a life and how that life lingers after.
'What is life?' asked the poet Shelley, and he could not come up with an answer. Scientists, too, for all their understanding of how life manifests, thrives and evolves, have still not answered that fundamental question. Yet biographers and obituarists continue to corral lives in a few columns, or a few hundred pages, aware all the time how fleeting and elusive their subject is.
In this dazzlingly original blend of poetry, biography, observation, and memoir, Wroe explores the experience of trying to capture the essence of a person. Animated by her rare imagination, eye for the telling detail, and the wit, beauty and clarity of her writing, Lifescapes is a luminous, deeply personal answer to Shelley's question.
Ann Wroe, obituaries editor for The Economist, reflects on the art and impossibility of capturing life on the page. Through her experiences and through people she has known, studied, or merely glimpsed in windows, she movingly explores what makes a life and how that life lingers after.
'What is life?' asked the poet Shelley, and he could not come up with an answer. Scientists, too, for all their understanding of how life manifests, thrives and evolves, have still not answered that fundamental question. Yet biographers and obituarists continue to corral lives in a few columns, or a few hundred pages, aware all the time how fleeting and elusive their subject is.
In this dazzlingly original blend of poetry, biography, observation, and memoir, Wroe explores the experience of trying to capture the essence of a person. Animated by her rare imagination, eye for the telling detail, and the wit, beauty and clarity of her writing, Lifescapes is a luminous, deeply personal answer to Shelley's question.
Ann Wroe, obituaries editor for The Economist, reflects on the art and impossibility of capturing life on the page. Through her experiences and through people she has known, studied, or merely glimpsed in windows, she movingly explores what makes a life and how that life lingers after.
'What is life?' asked the poet Shelley, and he could not come up with an answer. Scientists, too, for all their understanding of how life manifests, thrives and evolves, have still not answered that fundamental question. Yet biographers and obituarists continue to corral lives in a few columns, or a few hundred pages, aware all the time how fleeting and elusive their subject is.
In this dazzlingly original blend of poetry, biography, observation, and memoir, Wroe explores the experience of trying to capture the essence of a person. Animated by her rare imagination, eye for the telling detail, and the wit, beauty and clarity of her writing, Lifescapes is a luminous, deeply personal answer to Shelley's question.
Ann Wroe, obituaries editor for The Economist, reflects on the art and impossibility of capturing life on the page. Through her experiences and through people she has known, studied, or merely glimpsed in windows, she movingly explores what makes a life and how that life lingers after.
'What is life?' asked the poet Shelley, and he could not come up with an answer. Scientists, too, for all their understanding of how life manifests, thrives and evolves, have still not answered that fundamental question. Yet biographers and obituarists continue to corral lives in a few columns, or a few hundred pages, aware all the time how fleeting and elusive their subject is.
In this dazzlingly original blend of poetry, biography, observation, and memoir, Wroe explores the experience of trying to capture the essence of a person. Animated by her rare imagination, eye for the telling detail, and the wit, beauty and clarity of her writing, Lifescapes is a luminous, deeply personal answer to Shelley's question.
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Since 2003, Ann Wroe has written and edited obituaries for THE ECONOMIST. In this audiobook she describes the challenges of creating a life in words and delivers its blend of memoir, poetry, philosophical inquiry, and biography in a distinctly British accent. It begins with the story of a famous carp. Her anecdotes have unique insights: Playwright Arthur Miller was a woodworker; Raoul Wallenberg,
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