Lewis Hyde

"Art is a lie that tells the truth." - Pablo Picasso Picasso disrupted the world around him, and in doing so he reshaped it. That is the Trickster spirit. Playful, mischievous, subversive, amoral. Tricksters are a great bother to have around, but paradoxically they are also indispensable heroes of culture, because ourworld - with its complexity and ambiguity, its beauty and its dirt - was trickster's creation, and the work is not yet finished. Authoritative in its scholarship, supple and dynamic in its style, Trickster Makes This World encourages you to think and see afresh.

“A manifesto of sorts for anyone who makes art [and] cares for it.” —Zadie Smith “The best book I know of for talented but unacknowledged creators. . . . A masterpiece.” —Margaret Atwood “No one who is invested in any kind of art . . . can read The Gift and remain unchanged.” —David Foster Wallace By now a modern classic, The Gift is a brilliantly orchestrated defense of the value of creativity and of its importance in a culture increasingly governed by money and overrun with commodities. This book is even more necessary today than when it first appeared. An illuminating and transformative book, and completely original in its view of the world, The Gift is cherished by artists, writers, musicians, and thinkers. It is in itself a gift to all who discover the classic wisdom found in its pages.