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  • Published: 15 November 2008
  • ISBN: 9780099531869
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $32.99

The Presence



A moving memoir by a distinguished poet, written in the wake of his wife's death, this is a profound story of life, love and heartbreaking loss.

Winner of the Wales Book of the Year and shortlisted for the Pen/Ackerly Prize.

WINNER OF THE WALES BOOK OF THE YEAR AND SHORTLISTED FOR THE PEN/ACKERLY PRIZE.

Several months after the death of poet Dannie Abse's wife, Joan, in a car accident, he began to write a diary which is both a record of present grief and a portrait of a marriage that lasted more than fifty years. It is an extraordinary document, painful but celebratory, funny yet often tragic, bursting with joy as well as sorrow and full of a deep understanding of what it means to be human.

  • Published: 15 November 2008
  • ISBN: 9780099531869
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $32.99

About the author

Dannie Abse

Dannie Abse was for many years a chest specialist in a London teaching hospital. A poet, reviewer and playwright, he has written and edited more than fifteen books of poetry, as well as books about medicine and also fiction. He is the author of Ash on a Young Man's Sleeve and several autobiographical volumes, including Goodbye, Twentieth Century, which was published in 2001 to critical acclaim. He died, at the age of 91, in September 2014.

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Praise for The Presence

A supremely fresh and vital performance, matching profound emotion with witty observation... This is a truly marvellous book

Independent

Abse's diary is a remarkable and tender document

Sunday Times

For all its painful honesty, [this is] a surprisingly joyful and compelling book... Imbued with all the best qualities of what it means to human and in love

Independent on Sunday

The Presence is a fragment of autobiography written from the most private part of a poet's heart, with a pen dipped in blood and tears. That it transcends this to become both elegiac and celebratory, to inhabit both the suffered present and the beloved past, places it almost beyond the scope of routine criticism.

Daily Telegraph

Hauntingly poignant... One hopes that he comes before long to share the happiness this wise, funny, heart rending little book brings to its readers

Daily Telegraph

Full of memorable images... As Abse performs the strange and also strangely valuable work of mourning, he offers, with The Presence, wit and balm

Financial Times

Elegy and eulogy, full of kindness and understanding of our common vulnerablility, this lovely book is a very rich boon

The Times