The writing career of Booker Prize winner John Berger–poet, storyteller, playwright, and essayist–has yielded some of the most original and compelling examinations of art and life of the past half century. In this essential volume, Geoff Dyer has brought together a rich selection of many of Berger’s seminal essays. Berger’s insights make it impossible to look at a painting, watch a film, or even visit a zoo in quite the same way again. The vast range of subjects he addresses, the lean beauty of his prose, and the keenness of his anger against injustice move us to view the world with a new lens of awareness. Whether he is discussing the singleminded intensity of Picasso’s Guernica, the parallel violence and alienation in the art of Francis Bacon and Walt Disney, or the enigmatic silence of his own mother, what binds these pieces throughout is the depth and fury of Berger’s passion, challenging us to participate, to protest, and above all, to see.

ジョン・バージャーの筆致は、私たちの視覚体験を根底から変容させます。無駄を削ぎ落とした散文は、芸術のみならず日常の深淵にまで鋭い眼差しを向け、世界の本質を暴き出します。それは単なる批評ではなく、不条理に抗い、対象と共鳴するための哲学的な闘争そのものと言えるでしょう。 本書を貫くのは、不正義への怒りと、生に対する底知れぬ情熱です。読者は彼の言葉を通じて、世界を全く新しいレンズで捉え直す契機を得るはずです。真実を「視る」ことで世界に参画せよ。バージャーが遺した魂の記録は、今を生きる私たちに強烈な覚醒と勇気を与えてくれます。