Book description
Reality Hunger is a manifesto for a burgeoning group of
interrelated but unconnected artists who, living in an unbearably
artificial world, are breaking ever larger chunks of 'reality' into
their work. The questions Shields explores - the bending of form and
genre, the lure and blur of the real - play out constantly around us,
and Reality Hunger is a radical reframing of how we might think
about this 'truthiness': about literary licence, quotation, and
appropriation in television, film, performance art, rap, and graffiti,
in lyric essays, prose poems, and collage novels.
Drawing on myriad sources, Shields takes an audacious stance on
issues that are being fought over now and will be fought over far into
the future. Converts will see Reality Hunger as a call to arms;
detractors will view it as an occasion to defend the status quo. It is
certain to be one of the most controversial and talked about books of
the season.
David Shields is the author of several previous books, including
Dead Languages: A Novel in Stories
and, most recently, the 2008
New York Times
bestseller
The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll be Dead
.
www. davidshields.
