My Body in Nine Parts: With Three Supplements & Ten Illustrations [Paperback]

Raymond Federman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2005

For decades, Raymond Federman has been dazzling readers with his unique brand of “surfiction” – throwing words all over the page and inserting himself into every fiction, often through such zany alter egos as Moinous and Namredef. Now comes the greatest self-referential work of all as Federman spins all manner of tales off various parts of his own body, recounting his childhood in France, adult life in the US, Jewish heritage, and career as a writer, with no effort made to distinguish between fact & fiction, memory & imagination. Previously published in France as Mon corps en neuf parties, Federman's masterpiece is now available for the first time in English, with augmented translation by the author and accompanied by ten photographs by photographer Steve Murez.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A man of such joyful vitality that he will sweep anyone away." --L'Humanite (France)

"Hilariously digressive and wildly exuberant." --Lance Olsen

"Takes on larger issues of exile and home, nature and nurture -- with disarming humor." --Humanophone.com

About the Author

Born in France in 1928, Raymond Federman escaped the Nazi round-up of in Parisian Jews in 1942 by hiding in a closet into which his mother had pushed him, having heard the police starting up the stairs to the family’s apartment. Federman emigrated to the US in 1947, following the deaths of his mother, father, and two sisters in the extermination camp at Auschwitz. His early experiences in the US included being a American paratrooper in Korea, a saxophone player in Detroit, and a dishwasher and student in New York City, before earning his PhD in Literature at UCLA in 1963 and becoming one of the first American critical promoters of the work of Samuel Beckett. His numerous experiences, exploits, and linguistic inventions have become the basis for more than twenty books of fiction, poetry, and criticism, translated into German, Italian, French, Hungarian, Polish, Serbian, Rumanian, Hebrew, Dutch, Greek, Japanese, Chinese, and Swahili. Federman is also the recipien! t of Guggenheim, Fulbright, National Endowment for the Arts, and New York State Foundation for the Arts fellowships, the American Book Award, the Frances Steloff Prize for Experimental Fiction, and numerous foreign awards. An important theorist of contemporary writing, he has long insisted on the integration and inseparability of memory and imagination, fact and fiction. “I have to still believe, as I often do,” he said in a recent interview, “that one of these days around a street corner I’m going to meet my sisters.” He lives in San Diego, California, with his wife, Erica.

Product Details

• Paperback: 136 pages
• Publisher: Starcherone Books (May 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0970316542
• ISBN-13: 978-0970316547
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.7 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,320,604 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Trite, November 24, 2005

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emo "emo" (buffalo) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Body in Nine Parts: With Three Supplements & Ten Illustrations (Paperback)

Trite, self absorbed author looking at himself without having anything interesting to say. The book has nothing much going for it. Why does this writer think anyone is interested in hearing about his feet or his hair. The quality of the writing is mediocre. The mid life crises of a balding professor of a back woods college with no humor.