'David Hare's great quality has always been his refusal to accept the division between fact and imagination. His creative invention is fired by public realities and in turn he makes those realities feel deeply personal. That same quality is wonderfully at work in his essays and poems. Whether he is writing about Tony Blair or Joan Didion, whether he is writing out of love or rage, evoking the intimate moments of his own life or the great moral questions of our times, he brings his subjects to life with an irresistible immediacy. All the wit, combativeness, energy and edge he has brought to the stage are present here on the page.' Fintan O'Toole

I can't remember if I had any plans for the twenty-first century. I was already 52 when it arrived. But events raced off in such unexpected directions that any possible ideas must have gone out the window. Many of us shared the sensation that history was speeding up.

Recording dizzying changes in culture and politics, these elegant essays range in subject from the photographer Lee Miller to the Archbishop of Canterbury, from the actress Sarah Bernhardt to the rapist Jimmy Saville, from a celebration of Mad Men to a diagnosis of the incoherence of Conservatism in the new century.

The poems, in contrast, are private: tender meditations, filled with love, memory, vulnerability and the melancholy of ageing.

This is a powerful compilation of prose and poetry by one of the distinctive thinkers of our time.

A powerful compilation of prose and poetry by one of the distinctive thinkers of our time.

About the Author
David Hare has written over thirty stage plays and thirty screenplays for film and television. The plays include Plenty, Pravda (with Howard Brenton), The Secret Rapture, Racing Demon, Skylight, Amy's View, The Blue Room, Via Dolorosa, Stuff Happens, The Absence of War, The Judas Kiss, The Red Barn, The Moderate Soprano, I'm Not Running and Beat the Devil. For cinema, he has written The Hours, The Reader, Damage, Denial, Wetherby and The White Crow among others, while his television films include Licking Hitler, the Worricker Trilogy, Collateral and Roadkill. In a millennial poll of the greatest plays of the twentieth century, five of the top hundred were his.


Book Information
ISBN 9780571369515
Author David Hare
Format Hardback
Page Count 304
Imprint Faber & Faber
Publisher Faber & Faber
Weight(grams) 364g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 21mm