<DIV><p>Praise for Breyten Breytenbach's <i>Return to Paradise</i>:</p><p>"This wonderful book . . . is written with a wild heart and an unrelenting eye, and is fueled by the sort of rage that produces great literature."&mdash;<i>The Washington Post</i></p><p>What is the place of the artist and writer in a globalized world? In dialogue with the voices of the dead and the living&mdash;Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama&mdash; internationally distinguished South African artist, activist, and writer Breyten Breytenbach's new collection of essays traces the collisions between utopia and disaster, political trauma, and the renewal of hope. <i>Notes from the Middle World</i> is a beautiful and heartwrenching book. These essays include a glimpse of a buried language created in the Hunan province by and for women, an open letter to Nelson Mandela reflecting on the perilous state of post-apartheid South Africa, and existential and linguistic explorations. Against the conformity of power, Breytenbach takes readers on a journey through the "Middle World," an imagined space beyond borders and exile, toward an embracing vision of justice for the "un-citizens" post-modernity has dispossessed.</p><p>A native of South Africa, <b>Breyten Breytenbach</b> is a distinguished painter, activist, and prolific writer. His most recent writing has been published in <i>Harper's Magazine</i>. From 1975&ndash;1982, he was a political prisoner serving solitary confinement in South African prisons. Today, Breytenbach is a Global Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at New York University.</p></DIV>