An illuminating new life of the peerless thinker, artist and author of Ways of Seeing

Tom Overton got to know John Berger around 2010, after he gave his archive to the British Library: a kind of homecoming to the city of his birth, after a life lived mostly in self-imposed exile in Switzerland and France. Curious about the origin of a piece of writing or art, Tom would scan something in and email it. Then there'd come a call, very early, very late. 'Hello? Is that Tom? This is John. John Berger. Can I tell you a story?' Tom realised he was bringing this archive back into John's life, peering together through holes in time, remembering things he couldn't himself. And then, at the beginning of 2017, John died.

In this extraordinary new book, Overton explores the life and work of one of the great cultural figures of the last century, who came of age in a world threatened by nuclear apocalypse, and grew old in a world dominated by the idea that human life should be ordered with the logic of profit, always looking forward, never back. Berger's work reimagined the relationship between art and technology; charted the disappearance of peasants from the world and documented migrant labour; explored with huge compassion the AIDS crisis; was trenchantly opposed to the new world order that emerged in the 1990s and the War on Terror and passionately committed to the Palestinian cause. There were so many different subjects to his work; so many precisely chosen forms.

Cutting through the reverence that can build around any writer of his scope of achievement and drawing on both personal memory and a vast and previously unseen trove of material, Overton comes face to face with John Berger, showing the continued importance of a figure, whose work focused on the creating and recreating of communities past and present. For at the centre of this book, above all, is the idea that John Berger wants our company, and we need his.

About the Author
After cataloguing John Berger's archive at the British Library, Tom Overton spent fifteen years following its traces from Moscow to Texas, from the Alps to Istanbul. He worked with Berger on editing Portraits: John Berger on Artists and Landscapes: John Berger on Art, with Matthew Harle on The Underground Sea: John Berger on Miners and the Miners' Strike, and with Katya Berger on a forthcoming edition of Berger's letters. He's written for The Guardian, New Statesman, Frieze and London Review of Books and Paris Review blogs, works as the Archive Curator of the Barbican Centre, and lives in Sheffield.

Reviews
A vibrant biography of the pioneering critic ... This multi-layered portrait is a fitting tribute to the man behind Ways of Seeing * The Guardian *
This extraordinary biography reveals not only the innovative and experimental nature of Berger's historical and political insight, but the immense range of his intellectual output * Hans Ulrich Obrist *
Beautifully evocative, very moving, and splendidly written * Lisa Appignanesi *
John Berger is perhaps the only writer on art that I feel it essential to read. Tom Overton has written a brilliant account of his life and work * David Shrigley *
In Tom Overton's remarkable biography, we meet Berger again as someone who touched every soul he met, and whose determination to find a way through and beyond the twentieth century saw him change with the times without ever relinquishing his faith in the things that could shore us up against the ravages of history: art, universalism, Marx, nature, humanity, friendship, love. A wonderfully tender monument to a unique and inspiring man * Devorah Baum *



Book Information
ISBN 9780241262528
Author Tom Overton
Format Hardback
Page Count 400
Imprint Allen Lane
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 616g
Dimensions(mm) 242mm * 164mm * 36mm