Satyr Square: A Year, A Life in Rome

401 views · Published 21 March 2014 · 51:56 · Indexed 6 November 2026

Channel: GBH Forum Network · 2014 · Education

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Leonard Barkan discusses Satyr Square, which is part memoir, part literary criticism, part culinary and aesthetic travelogue, and overall a poignant and hilarious narrative about an American professor spending a magical year in Rome.

A scarred veteran of academic culture wars, Leonard Barkan is at first hungry, lonely, and uncertain of his intellectual mission. But soon he is appointed unofficial mascot of an eccentric community of gastronomes, becomes virtually bilingual, and falls in love. As the year progresses, he finds his voice as a writer, loses his lover, and returns definitively to America. His book is the celebration of a life lived in the uncanny spaces where art and real people intersect.

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