Literature is a Voyage of Discovery - Donatien Grau Tom Bishop Kartoniert (TB)

For over sixty years Tom Bishop has contributed to shaping the literary philosophical cultural artistic but also political conversation between Paris and New York. In his position as professor and director of the Center for French Civilization and Culture at New York University he made the Washington Square institution one of the great bridges between French innovation and a New York scene that was then in full transformation. Tom Bishop was close to Beckett championed Robbe-Grillet in the United States befriended Marguerite Duras and Hélène Cixous organized historic public encounters- such as the one between James Baldwin and Toni Morrison. He is also a scholar a recognized specialist in the avant-garde notably the Nouveau Roman and the Nouveau Thétre.In 2012 he invited Donatien Grau to give a talk at NYU. This invitation led to conversations-some of which are assembled in this book-and a frienship. Tom Bishop retraces his own history: his departure from Vienna his studies his meetings his choices his conception of literature and life his relationship to the political and economic world the way he helped define the profession of curator as it is practiced today. In these interviews he can be seen as a scholar an organizer a major intellectual as an individual with his anger refusals loyalty his insatiable appetite for discovery and novelty and his deep attachment to the university a place of freedom and creation.