Pe muchie de cuțit

De W. Somerset Maugham

„[Maugham este] un artist desăvârșit... un geniu.“ (Theodore Dreiser)

„Pentru un scriitor din generația mea este foarte dificil să rămână indiferent față de opera lui Somerset Maugham...“ (Gore Vidal)

„Maugham a fost scriitorul modern care m-a influențat cel mai mult, pe care îl admir din tot sufletul pentru darul său de a spune lucrurile direct, fără înflorituri.“ (George Orwell)

„Darul său unic de povestitor depășește adesea imaginația însăși.“ (The Sunday Times)

„Maugham rămâne un artist pasionat al formei...“ (Saturday Review of Literature)

Clasici moderni Litera pune laolaltă scriitori moderni ale căror opere au devenit deja repere clasice. Cele mai importante, mai provocatoare, mai emoționante, mai revoluționare opere din ultimii 125 de ani – cărți care vor continua să fie citite de la o generație la alta.

• Limbă: Română
• Editor: Litera Media Group
• Data lansării: 7 ian. 2016
• ISBN: 9786063303104

W. Somerset Maugham

W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) was an English novelist, playwright, and short story writer. Born in Paris, he was orphaned as a boy and sent to live with an emotionally distant uncle. He struggled to fit in as a student at The King’s School in Canterbury and demanded his uncle send him to Heidelberg University, where he studied philosophy and literature. In Germany, he had his first affair with an older man and embarked on a career as a professional writer. After completing his degree, Maugham moved to London to begin medical school. There, he published Liza of Lambeth (1897), his debut novel. Emboldened by its popular and critical success, he dropped his pursuit of medicine to devote himself entirely to literature. Over his 65-year career, he experimented in form and genre with such works as Lady Frederick (1907), a play, The Magician (1908), an occult novel, and Of Human Bondage (1915). The latter, an autobiographical novel, earned Maugham a reputation as one of the twentieth century’s leading authors, and continues to be recognized as his masterpiece. Although married to Syrie Wellcome, Maugham considered himself both bisexual and homosexual at different points in his life. During and after the First World War, he worked for the British Secret Intelligence Service as a spy in Switzerland and Russia, writing of his experiences in Ashenden: Or the British Agent (1927), a novel that would inspire Ian Fleming’s James Bond series. At one point the highest-paid author in the world, Maugham led a remarkably eventful life without sacrificing his literary talent.