The World Within the Word

"The World Within the Word," Gass's second published volume of criticism, is a landmark collection discussing Val?ry, Henry Miller, Sartre, Freud, Faulkner, suicide, "art and order," and the transformation of language into poetry and fiction. Revelatory and gorgeous, by turns humorous and devastating, it stands among Gass's best and most provocative books. First published by Knopf in 1978.

William H. Gass?is the author of four novels--＂Omensetter’s Luck,＂ ?＂Willie Masters’ Lonely Wife,＂ ＂The Tunnel,＂ and＂ Middle C＂--as well as two volumes of short stories and eight collections of essays. Gass was a professor of philosophy at Washington University from 1966-2000, and Director of the International Writers Center from 1990 until 2000. He has been the recipient of many awards, including the Pen-Nabokov Lifetime Achievement Award, the Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, and National Book Critics Circle Awards for Criticism in 1985, 1996, and 2003, among others.