AutoBioDiversity: True Stories from ZYZZYVA

Since its publication in 1989, Console and Classify has become a classic work in the history of science and in French intellectual history. Now with a new afterword, this much-cited and much-discussed... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1597140074
• ISBN13: 9781597140072
• Release Date: February 2005
• Publisher: Heyday Books
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

An Enterntaining and Feisty Anthology

AutoBioDiversity is an entertaining and feisty anthology of essays culled from the pages of ZYZZYVA in honor of the journal's twentieth anniversary. In his introduction (introductions are his forte), editor Howard Junker notes that he purposely avoided including "the usual suspects" (other than the celebrated Phil Levine) in "keeping with my essential commitment: to mine the slush pile in order to give new voices a chance." Junker should be proud of this anthology. He put these writers into print, some for the first time. These diverse voices tell us in their own words what it is to be them. And because of their eloquence, we do walk in their shoes for a short but exhilarating while. What a magnificent way to celebrate a twentieth anniversary. [The full version of this review first appeared in The Elegant Variation.]

engaging, lively multicultural first-person stories

The 27 true-life, memoir-styled stories delight again and again. Noted editor Junker of his acclaimed literary periodical ZYZZYVA has no agenda other than fresh, high-quality writing. As the title of the anthology of selections from the periodical connotes, the pieces reflect the contemporary multicultural society, especially its West Coast diversity. A number of the writers are from different ethnic backgrounds, a number are women, a number combine the two. In the pages, one finds creative nonfiction at its best--mostly plainly honest (this is what makes for the freshness), though sometimes teasingly elliptic, colorful, amusing, comprehensible, enlivening.