Realm of Unknowing

Powerful meditations on the nature and limits of human understanding from the author of Rider, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry.

In a constellation of essays, Mark Rudman brings his distinctive sensibility to ruminations on family history, the significance of place, the role of art in clarifying a chaotic world, and the thin, all-too-permeable line between sanity and insanity, restraint and abject cruelty.

“The inquiry, which you follow with brilliance and irony as well as with powerful curiosity, that pushes your writing towards all the recesses of your memory (and your life), is a model of the genre.” —Antoine de Baecque, Cahiers du Cinema

Praise for Mark Rudman’s Diverse Voices

“Mark Rudman's criticism is a unique blend of passion, clarity, and disquiet. I can think of no one who writes about poetry with greater commitment to the written word, who understands more deeply that to ask questions about art is to ask questions about life. In challenging himself, Rudman provokes us to challenge ourselves, and the result is a book of exceptional quality: erudite and idiosyncratic, a book that engages both heart and mind.―Paul Auster, New York Times–bestselling author

“Rudman’s work projects an individual voice, a distinctive sensibility. There is something very fresh and alive about this book.” ―Irving Howe, National Book Award–winning author