Talk
Why “I”? : The Embrace of the Memoir in Our Time
Thursday, February 22, 2018, 6:30PM
NYUAD Campus, Conference Center
Past Event
Open to the Public
Memoir is the most consequential form of prose writing of the past 25 years: Challenging and influencing the novel; reshaping narrative journalism;and attracting readers around the world. Why this advent of first-person storytelling? Why now? An American magazine editor for four decades, during which time he edited numerous long-form memoirs by notable writers, and the author, most recently, of a memoir about tennis and aging, Gerald Marzorati explores how a desire for authenticity, a growing distrust of detachment and omniscience, a renewed fascination in the West in childhood and parenting, and a planet of memory-laden men and women emigrating or fleeing, leaving and arriving, have together fueled a literary landscape in which the memoir is flourishing as never before.
Memoir is the most consequential form of prose writing of the past 25 years: Challenging and influencing the novel; reshaping narrative journalism;and attracting readers around the world. Why this advent of first-person storytelling? Why now? An American magazine editor for four decades, during which time he edited numerous long-form memoirs by notable writers, and the author, most recently, of a memoir about tennis and aging, Gerald Marzorati explores how a desire for authenticity, a growing distrust of detachment and omniscience, a renewed fascination in the West in childhood and parenting, and a planet of memory-laden men and women emigrating or fleeing, leaving and arriving, have together fueled a literary landscape in which the memoir is flourishing as never before.
- Gerald Marzorati, Former Editor of The New York Times Magazine; Author, "Late to the Ball" (Scribner, 2017), Individuals
- NYU Abu Dhabi Institute