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An Elemental Thing, by Eliot Weinberger

In a new cycle of linked nonfiction prose-pieces, Eliot Weinberger creates another "vortex for the entire universe." (Boston Review)

If you dream of a jaguar, people are coming.
If the jaguar bites you, they are not people.
--Eliot Weinberger, from "Lacandons"

"His remarkable use of simultaneity and collage is something that didn't quite exist before. His work makes you sit up in your seat." --Times Literary Supplement

"Weinberger is a master of distilling massive amounts of information into a compelling takedown." --TimeOut

Internationally acclaimed as one of the most innovative writers today, Eliot Weinberger has taken the essay into unexplored territories on the borders of poetry and narrative where the only rule, according to the author, is that all the information must be verifiable. With An Elemental Thing, Weinberger turns from his celebrated political chronicles to the timelessness of the subjects of his literary essays. With the wisdom of a literary archaeologist-astronomer-anthropologist-zookeeper, he leads us through histories, fables, and meditations about the ten thousand things in the universe: the wind and the rhinoceros, Catholic saints and people named Chang, the Mandaeans on the Iran-Iraq border and the Kaluli in the mountains of New Guinea. Among the thirty-five essays included are a poetic biography of the prophet Muhammad, which was praised by the London Times for its "great beauty and grace," and "The Stars," a reverie on what's up there that has already been translated into Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, and Maori.

ELIOT WEINBERGER (b. 1949) is the author of three books of literary essays--Works on Paper, Outside Stories, and Karmic Traces--and a collection of political articles, What Happened Here: Bush Chronicles (shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award), all published by New Directions. He is the editor most recently of World Beat: International Poetry Now from New Directions and The New Directions Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry, which was chosen as an "International Book of the Year" by the TLS. His essay, "What I Heard About Iraq," became an internet phenomenon, was adapted into a hit play, and read at antiwar demonstrations throughout the world. He lives in New York City.

Date of publication: May 2007