{"product_id":"lost-time-lectures-on-proust-in-a-soviet-prison-camp-paperback","title":"Lost Time: Lectures on Proust in a Soviet Prison Camp - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eJozef Czapski\u003c\/b\u003e (Author), \u003cb\u003eEric Karpeles\u003c\/b\u003e (Translator), \u003cb\u003eEric Karpeles\u003c\/b\u003e (Introduction by)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe first translation of painter and writer J zef Czapski's inspiring lectures on Proust, first delivered in a prison camp in the Soviet Union during World War II.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDuring the Second World War, as a prisoner of war in a Soviet camp, and with nothing but memory to go on, the Polish artist and soldier J zef Czapski brought Marcel Proust's \u003ci\u003eIn Search of Lost Time\u003c\/i\u003e to life for an audience of prison inmates. In a series of lectures, Czapski described the arc and import of Proust's masterpiece, sketched major and minor characters in striking detail, and movingly evoked the work's originality, depth, and beauty. Eric Karpeles has translated this brilliant and ­altogether unparalleled feat of the critical imagination into English for the first time, and in a thoughtful introduction he brings out how, in reckoning with Proust's great meditation on memory, Czapski helped his fellow officers to remember that there was a world apart from the world of the camp. Proust had staked the art of the novelist against the losses of a lifetime and the imminence of death. Recalling that triumphant wager, unfolding, like Sheherazade, the intricacies of Proust's world night after night, Czapski showed to men at the end of their tether that the past remained present and there was a future in which to hope.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eJózef Czapski \u003c\/b\u003e(1896-1993), a painter and writer, and an eyewitness to the turbulent history of the twentieth century, was born into an aristocratic family in Prague and grew up in Poland under czarist domination. After receiving his baccalaureate in Saint Petersburg, he went on to study law at Imperial University and was present during the February Revolution of 1917. Briefly a cavalry officer in World War I, decorated for bravery in the Polish-Soviet War, Czapski went on to attend the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and then moved to Paris to paint. He spent seven years in Paris, moving in social circles that included friends of Proust and Bonnard, and it was only in 1931 that he returned to Warsaw, and began exhibiting his work and writing art criticism. When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Czapski sought active duty as a reserve officer. Captured by the Germans, he was handed over to the Soviets as a prisoner of war, though for reasons that remain mysterious he was not among the twenty-two thousand Polish officers who were summarily executed by the Soviet secret police. Czapski described his experiences in the Soviet Union in two books: \u003ci\u003eMemories of Starobielsk\u003c\/i\u003e (forthcoming from NYRB) and \u003ci\u003eInhuman Land \u003c\/i\u003e(available from NYRB), the latter of which describes his continuing efforts to find out what had happened to his missing and murdered colleagues. Unwilling to live in postwar communist Poland, Czapski set up a studio outside of Paris. His essays appeared in Kultura, the leading intellectual journal of the Polish emigration that he helped establish; his painting underwent a great final flowering in the 1980s. Czapski died, nearly blind, at ninety-six. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eEric Karpeles\u003c\/b\u003e, painter, writer and translator, is the author of \u003ci\u003eAlmost Nothing: The 20th Century Art and Life of Józef Czapski\u003c\/i\u003e. His comprehensive guide, \u003ci\u003ePaintings in Proust\u003c\/i\u003e, considers the intersection of literary and visual aesthetics in the work of the great French novelist. He has written about the paintings of poet Elizabeth Bishop and about the end of life as seen through the works of Emily Dickinson, Gustav Mahler and Mark Rothko. Painter of the Sanctuary and the Mary and Laurance Rockefeller Chapel, he has also translated Lorenza Foschini's \u003ci\u003eProust's Overcoat\u003c\/i\u003e. He lives in Northern California.\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 128\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.3 x 7.9 x 5.1 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e November 06, 2018\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51770368622880,"sku":"9781681372587","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/9764\/5344\/files\/f46a46720e66a95edaf297e5a219d94d.webp?v=1780370318","url":"https:\/\/ebocreations.com\/products\/lost-time-lectures-on-proust-in-a-soviet-prison-camp-paperback","provider":"The E-Book Oasis LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}