Inadvertent (Why I Write) - Hardcover

"For any writer seeking reassurance of the virtue of rewriting, his description of 'eight hundred pages of beginnings' is a kind of balm. But he demands that writers never shy away from big questions: 'What is the meaning of life? Where does this meaning come from? Who am I?' A light-footed meditation on the literary life."--Kirkus Reviews "[Knausgaard] begins by recounting formative literary experiences: bringing home book-filled shopping bags from the local library, and the day his mother gave him Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea, a key moment in establishing literature as 'a hiding place for me, and at the same time a place where I became visible.'. . . . Aspiring writers will find comfort in Knausgaard's candor, which allows him to frankly reveal the feelings of inadequacy and fraudulence with which he has struggled."--Publishers Weekly

The Why I Write series is based on the Windham-Campbell Lectures, delivered annually to commemorate the awarding of the Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prizes at Yale University. Administered by Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the series publishes works based on the lecture given by the event's keynote speaker. The series launched in 2017 with the release of Devotion, by renowned musician, artist, and author Patti Smith. This new volume is by internationally best-selling author Karl Ove Knausgaard, and future editions will come from Pulitzer Prize winner Hilton Als and poet-playwright Elizabeth Alexander, who recited her poetry at the 2009 presidential inauguration of Barack Obama.