My Venice

by Harold Brodkey

Harold Brodkey first visited Venice in 1960, and his love of the city - its churches and vaporetti, its capacity to bewilder and seduce - brought him back time and again to the shores of the Adriatic in search of fresh inspiration. Brodkey's Venice is a city marked by powerful contrasts: solemn, fatalistic religiosity alongside exuberant mercantile optimism; pride beside humility; the sacred next to the profane. Illustrated with photographs by the renowned Italian photographer Giuseppe Bruno, My Venice combines passages from several of Brodkey's greatest works with previously unpublished notes and essays.