My Unwritten Books

George Steiner, the eminent professor of English at Cambridge and Geneva universities, has outlined seven books he has never written, but has always wanted to write, in seven sections. In this fiercely original and audacious work, George Steiner tells of seven books which he did not write. Because intimacies and indiscretions were too threatening. Because the topic brought too much pain. Because its emotional or intellectual challenge proved beyond his capacities. The actual themes range widely and defy conventional taboos: the torment of the gifted when they live among, when they confront, the very great; the experience of sex in different languages; a love for animals greater than for human beings; the costly privilege of exile; a theology of emptiness. Yet a unifying perception underlies this diversity. The best we have or can produce is only the tip of the iceberg. Behind every good book, as in a lit shadow, lies the book which remained unwritten, the one that would have failed better.

Professor George Steiner is Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University and Extraordinary Fellow of Churchill College at Cambridge University. His non-fiction includes Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, a critical analysis of the two great masters of the Russian novel, The Death of Tragedy, In Bluebeard's Castle, After Babel and No Passion Spent: Essays 1978-96. He is also the author of a number of works of fiction including Proofs and Three Parables and The Portage to San Cristobal of AH, which was adapted for the stage by Christopher Hampton. He has been a regular contributor of reviews and articles to journals and newspapers including the New Yorker, the Times Literary Supplement and The Guardian. He lives in Cambridge.