Last Pages - by Oscar Mandel (Paperback)

About the Book

Last Pages brings together some of the most thought-provoking and engaging works of Oscar Mandel, a noted Belgian-American playwrite, essayist, poet, fiction writer, and scholar. Comprising essays, a novella, a one-act play, and poetry, Last Pages dances through Mandel's archives with wit, sharp intelligence, and sometimes controversy, as with his essay on Judaism, "To be or not be a Jew."

Book Synopsis

Last Pages brings together some of the most thought-provoking and engaging works of Oscar Mandel, a noted Belgian-American playwright, essayist, poet, fiction writer, and scholar. Comprising essays, a novella, a one-act play, and poetry, Last Pages dances through Mandel's archives with wit, sharp intelligence, and sometimes controversy, as with his essay on Judaism, "To Be or Not to Be a Jew."

Review Quotes

Praise for the Works of Oscar Mandel

"Indirect, subliminal magic." --New York Times Book Review

"Strong, sophisticated stories." --Chicago Tribune


"Joyfulness and simple wisdom." --San Francisco Chronicle

"Delightful little tales, best described as modern Aesop fables." --Hollywood Reporter

"Catering to us closet thinkers who find intellectual intercourse a wholly satisfying pleasure." --Los Angeles Times

"Refreshing, witty and thoroughly engaging." --International New York Times

"Mandel's present-day, tongue-in-cheek fables are worthy descendants of Aesop and La Fontaine." --Hartford Courant

"What do I find in Last Pages that might make me want to tell my friend, 'Here, you should read this?' To this question there are several answers -- as one would expect, given Mandel's range -- but perhaps they can be summed up in two adjectives: witty and grim.... There is abundant wit in the play The Fatal French Dentist... [and] the two stories are clever parodies.... Yes, although Mandel describes himself as essentially cheerful, he is not always so. He can be profoundly serious, especially in his poetry, which is masterful."
-- Jake Fuchs, Los Angeles Review of Books

About the Author

Oscar Mandel is a Belgian-born American author, playwright, poet, and professor emeritus of literature at the California Institute of Technology. His plays have been widely staged, and his many published works, including the more recent books Otherwise Fables and Otherwise Poems, range across the fields of poetry, drama, fiction, the essay, literary scholarship and theory, translations (especially from French and German), and art history. He lives in Los Angeles, California, and Paris, France. Visit his website at www.oscarmandel.com