Conversations with Raymond Carver

This collection of Raymond Carver¿s interviews reveals him to have been perhaps the premier short-story writer of his generation a lyric-narrative poet of singular resonance and a staunch proponent of realistic fiction in the wake of postmodern formalism. The twenty-five conversations gathered here several available in English for the first time include craft interviews biographical portraits self-analyses and wide-ranging reflections on the current literary scene. Carver discusses his changing views of his widely influential fiction collections <i>What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (1981) Cathedral (1983) and Where I¿m Calling From (1988). Carver explains how at the height of his fame as a fiction writer he turned to poetry producing three prize-winning books in as many years. Finally in the closing months of his life he talks about the coming of his last triumphant stories the ones that secured his reputation.