John Berger

Berger is on the doorstep of eighty now, and for decades he has been one of the most elegant writers in the English language. He’s a master of the elegy and the vignette, and whether in the form of fiction or essay, his work has always had the long-view precision of a satellite photo. Berger’s enduring themes have been the power and pull of memory, the tangled messes and miracles of history, and human relationships. His latest, Here Is Where We Meet, which is described as “a fiction,” combines semi-autobiographical reveries and affectionate portraits of a diverse cast of characters from history and the authorÕs still-vivid imagination. Berger’s narrator spends a good deal of time meditating on a lavish dinner preparation for friends, and ranges across Europe and Asia in search of the dead that “don’t stay where they’re buried.”