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Contents

March 26, 1970 • Volume 14, Number 6

LETTERS

Contributors

D. J. Enright’s books include The Alluring Problem, Fields of Vision, Collected Poems 1948—1998, and, most recently, Interplay: A Kind of Commonplace Book. (August 2000)

Paul Goodman (1911–1972) was an American social critic, psychologist, poet, novelist, and anarchist, whose writings appeared in Politics, Partisan Review, The New Republic, Commentary, The New Leader, Dissent, and The New York Review of Books. He published several well-regarded but little-known books in a variety of fields—including city planning, Gestalt therapy, educational reform, literary criticism, and politics—before Growing Up Absurd, cancelled by its original publisher and turned down by a further eighteen, was brought out by Random House in 1960 and became an instant bestseller. Its author became an influential leader of the New Left and anti-war movements and a model for a new generation of critics like Susan Sontag, who wrote: “There is no living American writer for whom I have left the same simple curiosity to read as quickly as possible anything he wrote on any subject.” “Paul Goodman Changed My Life,” a 2011 documentary directed by Jonathan Lee and distributed by Zeitgeist Films, continues to play at film festivals and independent cinemas. The film received excellent reviews in such publications as The New York Times, Variety, The New York Post, Village Voice, and Time Out New York.

Alberto Moravia (1907-1990), the child of a wealthy family, was raised at home because of illness. He published his first novel, The Time of Indifference, at the age of twenty-three. Banned from publishing under Mussolini, he emerged after World War II as one of the most admired and influential twentieth-century Italian writers.

Jane Jacobs’s most recent book is The Nature of Economies. Her essay in this issue is the introduction to the Modern Library edition of Hard Times, which is being published later this month. (July 2001)

Frances FitzGerald’s books include Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars, and the End of the Cold War. (November 2008)

Edmund Wilson (1895-1972) is widely regarded as the preeminent American man of letters of the twentieth century. Over his long career, he wrote for Vanity Fair, helped edit The New Republic, served as chief book critic for The New Yorker, and was a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books. Wilson was the author of more than twenty books, including Axel’s Castle, Patriotic Gore, and a work of fiction, Memoirs of Hecate County.