Rural Hours The Country Lives of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Rosamond Lehmann de Harriet Baker

Cet essai biographique sort le 4 avril chez Penguin. Il me tente beaucoup :

Citation :

1917. Virginia Woolf arrives at Asheham, on the Sussex Downs, immobilized by nervous exhaustion and creative block.

1930. Feeling jittery about her writing career, Sylvia Townsend Warner spots a modest workman’s cottage for sale on the Dorset coast.

1941. Rosamond Lehmann settles in a Berkshire village, seeking a lovers’ retreat, a refuge from war, and a means of becoming ‘a writer again’.

Rural Hours tells the story of three very different women, each of whom moved to the country and were forever changed by it.

We encounter them at quiet moments – pausing to look at an insect on the windowsill; jotting down a recipe; or digging for potatoes, dirt beneath their nails. Slowly, we start to see transformations unfold. Invigorated by new landscapes, and the daily trials and small pleasures of making homes, they emerge from long periods of creative uncertainty and private disappointment; they embark on new experiments in form, in feeling and in living. In the country, each woman finds her path: to convalescence and recovery; to sexual and political awakening; and, above all, to personal freedom and creative flourishing.

Graceful, fluid, and enriched by previously untouched archival material, Rural Hours is both a paean to the bravery and vision of three pioneering writers, and a passionate invitation to us all: to recognize the radical potential of domestic life and rural places, and find new enchantment in the routines and rituals of each day.


Reviews
An absorbing study of the impact of country living on Woolf, Townsend Warner & Lehmann. A meditative exploration of renewal, visionariness—interior & exterior, generative & tormenting—grievous loss, & love—cool & passionate, fragile & enduring
David Hayden

Ce résumé donne effectivement envie de le découvrir !

L'essai fait l'objet d'un article dans The New Stateman :

Je ne résiste pas à l'envie de partager l'illustration de Derek Bacon :