Background
Harnack, Curtis Arthur was born on June 27, 1927 in LeMars, Iowa, United States. Son of Henry and Caroline (Lang) Harnack.
( In We Have All Gone Away, his emotionally moving memoir...)
In We Have All Gone Away, his emotionally moving memoir, Curtis Harnack tells of growing up during the Great Depression on an Iowa farm among six siblings and an extended family of relatives. With a directness and a beauty that recall Thoreau, Harnack balances a child’s impressions with the knowledge of an adult looking back to produce what Publishers Weekly called “a country plum of a book, written with genuine affection and vivid recall.” In a community related by blood and harvest, rural life could be bountiful even when hard economic times threatened. The adults urged children to become educated and to keep an eye on tomorrow. “We were all taught to lean enthusiastically into the future,” Harnack recalls, which would likely be elsewhere, in distant cities. At the same time, the children were cultivating a resiliency that would serve them well in the unknown world of the second half of the twentieth century. Inevitably, the Midwest’s small, diversified family farm gave way to large-scale agriculture, which soon changed the former intimate way of life. “Our generation, using the mulched dead matter of agrarian life like projectile fuel for our thrust into the future, became part of that enormous vitality springing out of rural America,” notes Harnack. Both funny and elegiac, We Have All Gone Away is a masterful memoir of the joys and sorrows of Iowa farm life at mid-century, a world now gone “by way of learning, wars, and marriage” but still a lasting part of America’s heritage.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1587299690/?tag=2022091-20
(At the height of the Cold War a young American teaches in...)
At the height of the Cold War a young American teaches in provincial Iran, near the Russian border. His students reveal their inner selves, their struggles to be modern, while still caught in ancient Persian traditions. Hailed as a travel book in the great tradition, the Chicago Tribune called it "a delicious rarity that one is sorry to finish but happy to recommend," and the London Sunday Telegraph: "Observant and often poignant, it is profound in its questions." The New York Times Book Review: "An urbane and well-written account Mr. Harnack has eminently succeeded."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813813360/?tag=2022091-20
(In "We Have All Gone Away," his emotionally moving memoir...)
In "We Have All Gone Away," his emotionally moving memoir, Curtis Harnack tells of growing up during the Great Depression on an Iowa farm among six siblings and an extended family of relatives. With a directness and a beauty that recall Thoreau, Harnack balances a child's impressions with the knowledge of an adult looking back to produce what "Publishers Weekly" called "a country plum of a book, w
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FFB7NFE/?tag=2022091-20
(The illusions of love and the realities of marriage are p...)
The illusions of love and the realities of marriage are portrayed in the lives of a rural Midwestern brother and sister. "With great skill, and with infinite care, Mr. harnack contrasts the solidity and stolidity of Robert's marriage wit the uncertainty and the continuing sense of romance that Alma cherishes in her voice." The New Yorker "Mr. Harnack has given his readers a yeoman piece of writing and I was fascinated by it...he has made a story that compels attention, an intelligent and meaningful novel." The New York Times "American writing at its finest." St. Louis Post Dispatch
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0595092284/?tag=2022091-20
( In the 1880s, the well-connected young Englishman Willi...)
In the 1880s, the well-connected young Englishman William B. Close and his three brothers, having bought thousands of acres of northwest Iowa prairie, conceived the idea of enticing sons of Britain’s upper classes to pursue the life of the landed gentry on these fertile acres. “Yesterday a wilderness, today an empire”: their bizarre experiment, which created a colony for people “of the better class” who were not in line to inherit land but whose fathers would set them up in farming, flourished in Le Mars, Iowa (and later in Pipestone, Minnesota), with over five hundred youths having a go at farming. In Gentlemen on the Prairie, Curtis Harnack tells the remarkable story of this quite unusual chapter in the settling of the Midwest. Many of these immigrants had no interest in American citizenship but enjoyed or endured the challenging adventure of remaining part of the empire while stranded on the plains. They didn’t mix socially with other Le Mars area residents but enjoyed such sports as horse racing, fox hunts, polo, and an annual derby followed by a glittering grand ball. Their pubs were named the House of Lords, the House of Commons, and Windsor Castle; the Prairie Club was a replica of a London gentlemen’s club, an opera house attracted traveling shows, and their principal hotel was Albion House. In St. George’s Episcopal Church, prayers were offered for the well-being of Queen Victoria. Problems soon surfaced, however, even for these well-heeled aristocrats. The chief problem was farm labor; there was no native population to exploit, and immigrant workers soon bought their own land. Although sisters might visit the colonists and sometimes marry one of them, appropriate female companionship was scarce. The climate was brutal in its extremes, and many colonists soon sold their acres at a profit and moved to countries affiliated with Britain. When the financial depression in the early 1890s lowered land values and made agriculture less profitable, the colony collapsed. Harnack skillfully draws upon the founder’s “Prairie Journal,” company ledgers, and other records to create an engaging, engrossing story of this quixotic pioneering experiment. f
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1587299674/?tag=2022091-20
("Meticulously integrated as a mosaic, it presents in luci...)
"Meticulously integrated as a mosaic, it presents in lucid prose a mixture of compassion and wonder. No other novel I have read recently can quite equal Mr. Harnack's for its psychological sagacity, its warmth and sobriety, its humor and its wisdom." —Carlos Baker, Princeton University.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0595092276/?tag=2022091-20
(From the moment he stepped off a plane at Tabriz, until h...)
From the moment he stepped off a plane at Tabriz, until his embarkation after a year's teaching at the local universtiy, Curtis Harnack's experiences in Iran revealed the unexpected, the humorous, often the strikingly beautiful or the unbelievably sad.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001AO26Q6/?tag=2022091-20
Harnack, Curtis Arthur was born on June 27, 1927 in LeMars, Iowa, United States. Son of Henry and Caroline (Lang) Harnack.
Bachelor, Grinnell College, Iowa, 1949. Master of Arts, Columbia University, 1950. Doctor of Letters (honorary), Westmar College, 1978.
Doctor of Letters (honorary), Grinnell College, Iowa, 1986.
Documents collator, United Nations Library, New York City, 1951-1952;
instructor English, Grinnell College, Iowa., 1952-1956;
admissions counselor, Grinnell College, 1953-1954;
lecturer graduate school, U. Iowa Writers Workshop, 1959-1960;
lecturer, U. Iowa Writers Workshop, Iowa City, 1957-1958;
Fulbright professor American Literature, U. Tabriz, Iran, 1958-1959;
literature faculty, Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York, 1960-1971;
executive director, Corporation of Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, New York, 1971-1986;
president, Corporation of Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, 1986-1987;
freelance writer, since 1987. Visiting Professor of English, Williams College, 1988. Vice president Hand Hollow Foundation, East Chatham, New York, since 1979.
Director The Fund for Artists Colonies, New York City, 1979-1987. Chairman fiction panel National Book Awards, 1991.
(From the moment he stepped off a plane at Tabriz, until h...)
(In "We Have All Gone Away," his emotionally moving memoir...)
( In We Have All Gone Away, his emotionally moving memoir...)
(The illusions of love and the realities of marriage are p...)
("Meticulously integrated as a mosaic, it presents in luci...)
(At the height of the Cold War a young American teaches in...)
(At the height of the Cold War a young American teaches in...)
( In the 1880s, the well-connected young Englishman Willi...)
(Will be shipped from US. Used books may not include compa...)
(Book by Harnack, Curtis)
President School American Ballet, since 1992. Served with United States Navy, 1945-1946. Member Writers Guild East, The Dramatists Guild, Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists association, The Authors Guild.
Clubs: The Century Association (New York City).
Married Jane Slichter, August 3l, 1951 (divorced 1957). Married Hortense Calisher, March 23, 1959.