num_pages: 95
description: A work of creative brilliance may seem like magicits source a mystery its impact unexpectedly stirring. How does an artist accomplish such an achievement connecting deeply with an audience never met? In this groundbreaking book one of our cultures beloved artists offers a detailed account of her own creative process inspirations and unexpected connections. Patti Smith a National Book Award-winning author first presents an original and beautifully crafted tale of obsessiona young skater who lives for her art a possessive collector who ruthlessly seeks his prize a relationship forged of need both craven and exalted. She then takes us on a second journey exploring the sources of her story. We travel through the South of France to Camuss house and visit the garden of the great publisher Gallimard where the ghosts of Mishima Nabokov and Genet mingle. Smith tracks down Simone Weils grave in a lonely cemetery hours from London and winds through the nameless Paris streets of Patrick Modianos novels. Whether writing in a caf or a train Smith generously opens her notebooks and lets us glimpse the alchemy of her art and craft in this arresting and original book on writing.The Why I Write series is based on the Windham-Campbell Lectures delivered annually to commemorate the awarding of the Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prizes at Yale University.
language: English
title: Devotion
publisher: Yale University Press