“”This book is important–and portentous–for if it is true that tragedy is dead, we face a vital cultural loss. . . . The book is bound to start controversy. . . . The very passion and insight with which he writes about the tragedies that have moved him prove that the vision still lives and that words can still enlighten and reveal.””-R.B. Sewall, New York Times Book Review

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George Steiner is an essayist, writer, critic, and cultural philosopher. After fleeing the increasing anti-Semitic violence in Europe, he spent a large part of his youth in the United States. He studied at Harvard and Oxford. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, and he is the author of many books, including In Bluebeard s Castle, Language and Silence, After Babel, and The Poetry of Thought. George Steiner is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Geneva. His books include The Death of Tragedy, Language in Silence, In Bluebeard’s Castle, and On Difficulty and Other Essays.

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