Social and Cultural Anthropology
Trickster Makes this World: Mischief, Magic and Art - Lewis Hyde
- Publisher: Canongate Books
- ISBN: 978 1 84767 224 7
- Extent: tbc
- Publication Date: February 2008
- Format: hbk, 234 x153 mm
- Price: £16.99
- Rights available: World except US, Canada, Japan and Italy
Trickster Makes This World brings to life the playful and disruptive side of the human imagination as it is embodied in the trickster mythology. Most at home on the road or at the twilight edge of town, tricksters are consummate boundary-crossers, slipping through keyholes, breaching walls subverting defence systems. Always out to satisfy their inordinate appetites, lying, cheating and stealing, tricksters are a great bother to have around but paradoxically they are also indispensable heroes.
In this fascinating book, Lewis Hyde explores the old myths that state that the trickster made the world as it actually is. He argues that our world, with its complexity and ambiguity, its beauty and its dirt, was trickster’s creation, and the work is not yet finished.
‘I’m pretty much convinced that Hyde is one of our true superstars of nonfiction – this book not only covers its subject in more depth and comprehension than anything before (anything I’ve read, anyway) but it also ends up being about… well, everything. The guy’s both brilliant (intellectually, literarily) and wise (psychologically, spiritually, you-name-itally).’ David Foster Wallace
‘A glorious grab-bag stuffed with necessary loot, a joyful plum pudding rich in treasures.’ Margaret Atwood, Los Angeles Times
‘Brilliant… By the time he is done he has folded language, culture and the very habit of being human into his ken.’ The New Yorker
Contact: Polly Collingridge – polly@canongate.co.uk