About this item
One of the most beloved and bestselling novels of spiritual adventure ever published, Ishmael has earned a passionate following. This special twenty-fifth anniversary edition features a new foreword and afterword by the author. "A thoughtful, fearlessly low-key novel about the role of our species on the planet . . . laid out for us with an originality and a clarity that few would deny." - The New York Times Book Review. Teacher Seeks Pupil.Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person.It was just a three-line ad in the personals section, but it launched the adventure of a lifetime.. So begins an utterly unique and captivating novel. It is the story of a man who embarks on a highly provocative intellectual adventure with a gorilla - a journey of the mind and spirit that changes forever the way he sees the world and humankinds place in it. In Ishmael, which received the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship for the best work of fiction offering positive solutions to global problems, Daniel Quinn parses humanitys origins and its relationship with nature, in search of an answer to this challenging question: How can we save the world from ourselves? Explore Daniel Quinns spiritual Ishmael trilogy: ISHMAEL * MY ISHMAEL * THE STORY OF B Praise for Ishmael. "As suspenseful, inventive, and socially urgent as any fiction or nonfiction you are likely to read this or any other year." - The Austin Chronicle. "Before were halfway through this slim book . . . were in [Daniel Quinns] grip, we want Ishmael to teach us how to save the planet from ourselves. We want to change our lives." - The Washington Post. "Arthur Koestler, in an essay in which he wondered whether mankind would go the way of the dinosaur, formulated what he called the Dinosaurs Prayer: Lord, a little more time! Ishmael does its bit to answer that prayer and may just possibly have bought us all a little more time." - Los Angeles Times
About the Author
I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and studied at St. Louis University, the University of Vienna, and Loyola University of Chicago. I worked in Chicago-area publishing for twenty years before beginning work on the book for which I'm best known, Ishmael. This book was chosen from among some 2500 international entrants to win the half-million dollar 1991 Turner Tomorrow competition for a novel offering "creative and positive solutions to global problems." The novel has subsequently sold more than a million copies in English, is available in some thirty languages, and has been used in high schools and colleges worldwide in courses as varied as philosophy, geography, ecology, archaeology, history, biology, zoology, anthropology, political science, economics, and sociology. Subsequent works include Providence, The Story of B, My Ishmael: A Sequel, Beyond Civilization, After Dachau, The Holy, and most recently At Woomeroo, a collection of short stories. I can be found on Facebook, and my Web site, ishmael.org, is enormous, offering news and announcements from readers, suggested readings, speeches and essays available nowhere else, detailed answers to more than 500 questions asked by readers over the years, and a Guestbook with thousands of entries. I and my wife, Rennie, have lived in Chicago, Santa Fe and Madrid, New Mexico, and Austin, Texas. We currently live in Houston.
