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ISBN: PB: 9780300251814

Yale University Press

April 2020

264 pp.

21x14.6 cm

PB:
£10,99
QTY:

Ben Hecht

Fighting Words, Moving Pictures

He was, according to Pauline Kael, "the greatest American screenwriter". Jean-Luc Godard called him "a genius" who "invented 80 percent of what is used in Hollywood movies today". Besides tossing off dozens of now-classic scripts – including "Scarface","Twentieth Century", and "Notorious" – Ben Hecht was known in his day as ace reporter, celebrated playwright, taboo-busting novelist, and the most quick-witted of provocateurs. During World War II, he also emerged as an outspoken crusader for the imperiled Jews of Europe, and later he became a fierce propagandist for pre-1948 Palestine's Jewish terrorist underground. Whatever the outrage he stirred, this self-declared "child of the century" came to embody much that defined America – especially Jewish America – in his time.

Hecht's fame has dimmed with the decades, but Adina Hoffman's vivid portrait brings this charismatic and contradictory figure back to life on the page. Hecht was a renaissance man of dazzling sorts, and Hoffman – critically acclaimed biographer, former film critic, and eloquent commentator on Middle Eastern culture and politics – is uniquely suited to capture him in all his modes.

About the Author

Adina Hoffman is an award-winning essayist and biographer. The author of four books, including "Till We Have Built Jerusalem: Architects of a New City" and "My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happiness: A Poet's Life in the Palestinian Century", she lives in Jerusalem and New Haven.