Ensayismo

A literary delicatessen: an essay on the art of writing essays and the pleasure of reading them. Essayism reflects on the meaning of writing essays in today's world and explores the various approaches and possibilities: personal, critical, controversial, seductive, digressive, elucubrative, associative, erudite, passionate, dispassionate, reflective, curious, ironic, aphoristic... Go through the history of the genre and pay homage to its great teachers: Montaigne, Sir Thomas Browne, Pascal, Charles Lamb, Emerson, Thomas de Quincey, Virginia Woolf, Cyril Connolly, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Roland Barthes, Georges Perec, Maurice Blanchot, Susan Sontag, Elizabeth Hardwick, Janet Malcolm, W. G. Sebald... Interweaving his own experiences and reading, Brian Dillon vindicates the essay as a literary adventure and celebrates the inexhaustible richness of this genre, which is a lucid way of contemplating and understanding life.