The World I Live In

Description

Out of print for nearly a century, The World I Live In is Helen Keller's most personal and intellectually adventurous work-one that transforms our appreciation of her extraordinary achievements. Here this preternaturally gifted deaf and blind young woman closely describes her sensations and the workings of her imagination, while making the pro-vocative argument that the whole spectrum of the senses lies open to her through the medium of language. Standing in the line of the works of Emerson and Thoreau, The World I Live In is a profoundly suggestive exercise in self-invention, and a true, rediscovered classic of American literature. This new edition of The World I Live In also includes Helen Keller's early essay "Optimism," as well as her first published work, "My Story," written when she was twelve.

Helen Keller (1880-1968) was born in northwest Alabama, with full sight and hearing. At nineteen months she suffered a mysterious illness that left her both blind and deaf and interrupted her speech development. She graduated from college in 1904, the first deaf-blind person to attend an institution of higher learning. In subsequent years, Helen Keller joined the Socialist Party and embarked on a career as a public lecturer. She has written several books, including The Story of My Life and Teacher and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964. Roger Shattuck is the author of The Banquet Years, The Innocent Eye, Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography, Candor and Perversion, and Proust's Way.

"Roger Shattuck's striking new edition of The World I Live In, a sparkling work too long obscured, renews Helen Keller for all generations-for the steadfast admirers of her art, and particularly for readers not yet acquainted with the sightless genius who taught the world the majesty of her insight. The World I Live In brings us intimately close, in her own valiant words, to the mind of a woman for whom language was life." - Cynthia Ozick "While Helen Keller is better known for The Story of My Life, her later book, The World I Live In, is a warmer, more intimate and more beautiful work, one in which we encounter Helen Keller's remarkable imagination, her originality, and her power as a literary artist. She comes alive here, vividly and idiosyncratically, more than in any other of her writings." - Oliver Sacks "An astounding account, enhanced further by Roger Shattuck's excellent introduction in which he explores the implications of her experience." - The Observer "An affirmation of the fact that real miracles are the product of human endeavour and inspiration" - Times Educational Supplement (London)