Meat is for special days : pride and poverty in a village in Ecuador / Moritz Thomsen

Politics & Social Sciences

Thomsen, Moritz

Social Sciences

London Souvenir Press

At the age of 48, Moritz Thomsen sold his pig farm and joined the Peace Corps. As he tells the story, his awareness of the comic elements in the human situation―including his own―and his ability to convey it in fast-moving, earthy prose have made Living Poor a classic.

Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle

Biographies & Memoirs

University of Washington Press

The Farm on the River of Emeralds

Recounts the author's struggles, in company with a thirty-year-old semiliterate black Ecuadorian, against nature, history, tradition, and other men in their efforts to run a tropical farm in accordance with fair play and racial equality

Travel

Travel Writing

Houghton/Mifflin

The Saddest Pleasure The Saddest Pleasure is a deeply personal look at the people, poverty, beauty, art, music, literature, and passion of South America by an American who has spent most of his life there. Moritz Thomsen was one of the early Peace Corps volunteers. Through his skill as a writer he vividly brings to life the people and landscapes he loves. The Saddest Pleasure tells the story of Thomsen's desperate departure from Ecuador at the age of sixty-three and his soul-searching journey through Brazil and the Amazon River. Along the way the author reflects on the meaning of his own life and the world around him, his friendships, and on the distances between people and cultures. Thomsen's spirited observations are tinged with irascibility, as he moves from city to feudal countryside, from primitive conditions to the startlingly contemporary details of a culture in transition. Paul Theroux's introduction to this book is a testament to Mr. Thomsen's remarkable life.

The Saddest Pleasure: A Journey on Two Rivers (A Graywolf Memoir)

South America

Graywolf Press

Moritz Thomsen&#8217;s My Two Wars describes the great battles in his life &#8211;nbsp;one against a rich, tyrannical father; the other against anti-aircraft gunners over Germany in 1943 and 1944. It was completed shortly before Thomsen&#8217;s death, and with it he concluded the story of his unusual life. In this posthumously published masterpiece he returns to his youth growing up in a wealthy Seattle household with the father he despised, and goes off to war in Europe as a bombardier with the Eighth Air Force. In his introduction Page Stegner calls it &#8220;the best narrative account ever written of an imperfect and fragile human soul caught up in the air war over Germany.&#8221; But it is Thomsen&#8217;s other war &#8211; his lifelong and monumental battle with his father &#8211;nbsp;which begins and ends the book and makes My Two Wars one of the most outrageous and memorable father-and-son stories ever told.

My Two Wars: with an introduction by Page Stegner

Arts & Literature

Steerforth

Avid followers of the career and life of Mr. Thomsen have known of this unpublished manuscript. We are so pleased to put into print the first edition of Bad News. The editors, with the permission of the Thomsen family, created this edition from a photocopy of the original typed manuscript, which includes the author’s own handwritten notes and corrections. With this first edition, the family seeks to bring Mr. Thomsen’s newest book to a loyal and appreciative readership that has long wondered about the existence of the Bad News manuscript, and were eager to see it in print. In this book, Mr. Thomsen presents us with a series of 30+ insightful vignettes dating back to his arrival in Ecuador in 1964. These snapshots of many of the characters of earlier books add depth and perspective to Mr. Thomsen’s attempt at making sense of the tragedy and beauty of his complex world in Esmeraldas, Ecuador. The work builds not only upon his previous studies of poverty, but builds methodically through specific memories that frame his, and now our, understanding of what he witnesses.

Bad News from a Black Coast

Politics & Government

Independently published

Abruptly expelled from his farm in Ecuador at the age of sixty-two, Moritz Thomsen indulges in that saddest of pleasures - travel - taking a trip to Brazil and ultimately a journey up the great Amazon River by boat.Assaulted by ghosts and memories at every turn, as his journey unfolds he reexamines his life to understand how he came to be living a life of self-imposed poverty and hardship. Outwardly he sails up the Amazon towards Manaus, giving us poignant and limpid descriptions of the river, yet inwardly a shattering romantic symphony rages, running from the depths of human misery to life's small but exquisite transcendent pleasures. He spares the reader nothing.

The Saddest Pleasure: A Journey on Two Rivers (Eland Classics)

Leaders & Notable People

Eland Publishing

THERE ARE THOSE who consider the little-known Moritz Thomsen one of the best American writers of the century," said the Washington Post in reviewing My Two Wars. Thomsen here describes the two great battles in his life – one against his rich, tyrannical father; the other against German pilots and anti-aircraft gunners in 1943 and 1944. Thomsen had an abiding hatred for his father, and with this portrait of the man he has given us one of literature’s true monsters. "Rarely has the similarity between war and family been as clearly drawn as it is in this scathing unblinking memoir," said Kirkus in its starred review of the book. "Thomsen’s writing about the war, both philosophical and descriptive, is stunning" said the Post.

My Two Wars

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