John Berger

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With a career in literature and art spanning more than sixty years, John Berger is characterized by an independent and anti-institutional approach to creativity. Working in a range of media including novels, painting, essays and scriptwriting, Berger's is perhaps best known for his seminal book of art criticism Ways of Seeing, published in 1972. Tied directly into a four-part BBC television series, the book presented a radical new interpretation of Western cultural aesthetics. In the same year, Berger's experimental novel G. was awarded the Booker Prize for Fiction, cementing his reputation as a boundary-pushing writer and thinker. In this concise yet detailed study of Berger's life and work, the first for decades, Andy Merrifield sheds light on Berger the man, the artist, and the concerned citizen.

Reviews

An illuminating new take on John Bergers wide-ranging work, and the ideas and people that have helped shape his books and diverse collaborations. * Mike Dibb, filmmaker and Director of the BBC TV series Ways of Seeing *
An affectionate and readable study, it examines Berger mostly through the lens of his books, the dense interpretation occasionally enriched with biographical asides. * Art Newspaper *

Author Bio

Andy Merrifield is an educator and writer. His books include Dialectical Urbanism: Social Struggles in the Capitalist City (Monthly Review Press, 2002), Metromarxism: A Marxist Tale of the City (Routledge, 2002) Guy Debord (Reaktion Books, 2005), Magical Marxism (2011) and John Berger (Reaktion, 2012).