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Cuando se cumplen cien años del nacimiento de Hannah Arendt, reeditamos un documento fundamental para entender no solo la obra y la vida de la gran pensadora alemana sino también la biografía moral, política e intelectual de la segunda mitad del siglo XX. La correspondencia que la autora de Eichmann en Jerusalén o Los orígenes del totalitarismo mantuvo a lo largo de veinticinco años con Mary McCarthy, una de las novelistas y ensayistas norteamericanas más brillantes del pasado siglo, constituye, en efecto, un diálogo inteligentísimo, edificante, ameno e iluminador sobre la historia y la cultura de Europa y Estados Unidos desde los años posteriores a la Segunda Guerra Mundial hasta las secuelas de los movimientos del 68, además del emotivo testimonio de una amistad -intensa y vibrante- entre dos de las mujeres más lúcidas de su tiempo. La crítica ha dicho... «Uno de los diálogos más inteligentes que se han dado en el siglo.» The New York Times «Un agudo diagnóstico de nuestro tiempo.» The Washington Post «Da testimonio de una delicada situación geopolítica, la que puso en relación a la hegemónica potencia estadounidense con una maltrecha Alemania que trataba de rehacerse —ya no solo materialmente, sino identitariamente— después de más de una década bajo el régimen nazi. [...] Amén del cuidadoso y lúcido análisis sociocultural, el volumen también da cuenta de la relación entre dos mujeres de gran y diversa inteligencia, capaces de iluminarse entre sí y de encontrar formas de discurso alternativas en una intimidad descapitalizada, abierta, honesta». Zenda «El vocabulario que empleó [Arendt] para pensar y narrar el mundo, sus reflexiones y esa escritura tan bella, tan suya, nos ayudan a interpretar lo que nos ocurre, aunque solo sea como simples enanos mirando el mundo a hombros de gigantes. Ella, desde luego, lo fue.» Máriam Martínez-Bascuñán, Babelia «Hannah Arendt volvió a pensar el espacio público después de su destrucción y nosotros debemos volver a ella para prevenir que se destruya de nuevo.» Andreu Jaume «[McCarthy posee] una de las plumas más ágiles y más divertidamente corrosivas de la literatura anglosajona del siglo xx.» Fernando Schwartz, El País «Lo destacable de la escritura de McCarthy es esa nitidez de pensamiento, esa conciencia en estado de claridad que puede mirar a su alrededor sin dejar de verse a sí misma.» Lourdes Ventura, El Cultural «Discuten, se critican, se admiran, se leen, se echan de menos. Se cuentan sus problemas, sus altibajos, sus alegrías, sus relaciones personales. En fin, lo habitual entre dos amigas, pero con el ingenio, la espontaneidad y la fluidez que ambas empleaban en el oficio literario que ocupaba su existencia». Ana M. Serrano, Loff «El testimonio de una excelente y conmovedora amistad. [...] Un libro valioso y ameno.» Los Angeles Time

Three candid, affecting memoirs by the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Group, including a National Book Award finalist. In Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, Mary McCarthy begins with her recollections of a happy childhood cut tragically short by the death of her parents during the influenza epidemic of 1918. Tempering memory with invention, McCarthy describes how, orphaned at six, she spent much of her childhood shuttled between two sets of grandparents and three religions—Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish. Early on, McCarthy lets the reader in on her secret: The chapter you just read may not be wholly reliable—facts have been distilled through the hazy lens of time and distance.How I Grew is McCarthy's intensely personal autobiography of her life from age thirteen to twenty-one. With detail driven by an almost astonishing memory recall, the author gives us a masterful account of these formative years. From her wild adolescence—including losing her virginity at fourteen—through her eventual escape to Vassar, the bestselling novelist, essayist, and critic chronicles her relationships with family, friends, lovers, and the teachers who would influence her writing career. And Intellectual Memoirs opens with McCarthy as a married twenty-four-year-old Communist and critic. She's disciplined, dedicated, and sexually experimental: At one point she realizes that in twenty-four hours she “had slept with three different men.” Over the course of three years, she will have had two husbands, the second being the esteemed, much older critic Edmund Wilson. It is Wilson who becomes McCarthy's mentor and muse, urging her to try her hand at fiction. Intellectual Memoirs is a vivid snapshot of a distinctive place and time—New York in the late 1930s—and the forces that shaped Mary McCarthy's life as a woman and a writer.

The author of The Group, the groundbreaking bestseller and 1964 National Book Award finalist that shaped a generation of women, brings reminiscences of her girlhood to this intimate and illuminating memoirHow I Grew is Mary McCarthy's intensely personal autobiography of her life from age thirteen to twenty-one.Orphaned at six, McCarthy was raised by her maternal grandparents in Seattle, Washington. Although her official birthdate is in 1912, it wasn't until she turned thirteen that, in McCarthy's own words, she was “born as a mind.” With detail driven by an almost astonishing memory recall, McCarthy gives us a masterful account of these formative years. From her wild adolescence—including losing her virginity at fourteen—through her eventual escape to Vassar, the bestselling novelist, essayist, and critic chronicles her relationships with family, friends, lovers, and the teachers who would influence her writing career.Filled with McCarthy's penetrating insights and trenchant wit, this is an unblinkingly honest and fearless self-portrait of a young woman coming of age—and the perfect companion to McCarthy's Memories of a Catholic Girlhood.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.

In this no-holds-barred memoir with a foreword by Elizabeth Hardwick, the bestselling author of The Group recalls her early life in New York, revealing the genesis of and genius behind her groundbreaking fiction Mary McCarthy is a married twenty-four-year-old Communist and critic when this memoir begins. She's disciplined, dedicated, and sexually experimental: At one point she realizes that in twenty-four hours she “had slept with three different men.” But she believes in the institution of marriage. Over the course of three years, she will have had two husbands, the second being the esteemed, much older critic Edmund Wilson. It is Wilson who becomes McCarthy's mentor and muse, urging her to try her hand at fiction.McCarthy's powers of observation are on witty display here, as the seventy-something writer recalls events that took place half a century earlier. Her eye for the revealing detail will be recognized by readers of her novels as she describes marching in May Day parades, attending parties for the Scottsboro Boys, and witnessing firsthand the American left wing's response to the Moscow trials and the Spanish Civil War.Picking up where How I Grew left off and unfinished at the time of her death in 1989, Intellectual Memoirs is a vivid snapshot of a distinctive place and time—New York in the late 1930s—and the forces that shaped Mary McCarthy's life as a woman and a writer.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.

Tracing her moral struggles to the day she accidentally took a sip of water before her Communion—a mortal sin—Mary McCarthy gives us eight funny and heartrending essays about the illusive and redemptive nature of memory“During the course of writing this, I've often wished that I were writing fiction.”Originally published in large part as standalone essays in the New Yorker and Harper's Bazaar, Mary McCarthy's acclaimed memoir begins with her recollections of a happy childhood cut tragically short by the death of her parents during the influenza epidemic of 1918.Tempering memory with invention, McCarthy describes how, orphaned at six, she spent much of her childhood shuttled between two sets of grandparents and three religions—Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish. One of four children, she suffered abuse at the hands of her great-aunt and uncle until she moved to Seattle to be raised by her maternal grandparents. Early on, McCarthy lets the reader in on her secret: The chapter you just read may not be wholly reliable—facts have been distilled through the hazy lens of time and distance.In Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, McCarthy pays homage to the past and creates hope for the future. Reminiscent of Nabokov's Speak, Memory, this is a funny, honest, and unsparing account blessed with the holy sacraments of forgiveness, love, and redemption.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Mary McCarthy including rare images from the author's estate.