By turns reflective, entertaining and moving, this book reveals how some of the most influential and best loved writers of our time were shaped by their inspirational teachers. Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee, Margaret Drabble, Stephen Greenblatt, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Andrew Motion, Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina and Paul Theroux are among the twenty contributors of original essays to this landmark volume celebrating masters of the teaching profession.

What makes a good teacher? What lights the writer's creative fire? How can the teacher shape the writer? This book answers these questions and more, describing the powerful influence of mentors at an impressionable time of life, portraying the heart-warming transition from pupil to friend, and exploring the lasting impact that truly great teachers can have on their students.

To have teachers who care, and to have such notable writers capture their spirit, is ample reason to read Dale Salwak's elegant celebration of the 'noble profession' and the world-renowned writers that it helped to hone.

Table of Contents:

Preface
Notes on Contributors

Part I School

1 Teachers We Remember: Gerrit Gouws
J. M. Coetzee
2 Mabel Morrill
Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina
3 Learning Curve
Catherine Aird
4 A Way with Words
Michael Scammell
5 Peter Way
Andrew Motion
6 My Grandfather and My Other Teachers
Ngugi wa Thiong'o
7 Il Miglior Fabbro
George Howe Colt

Part II College

8 The Perilous Balance of Marvin Eisenberg
Jeffrey Meyers
9 W. Edward Brown: Many Years of Mentoring
Jay Parini
10 David Milch and the Strategies of Indirection in Fiction
William Logan

Part III Graduate School and After
11 My Doktorvater
Stephen Greenblatt
12 A Far Cry from Oxbridge
Margaret Drabble
13 The Right Words
Carl Rollyson
14 Remembering Allen Mandelbaum
Paul Mariani
15 Sketch of a Professor: Roger Gilliatt
Michael J. Aminoff
16 How Lucky I Was . . .
Ann Thwaite
17 J. P. Stern: The Professor from Prague
Daniel Johnson
18 George Steiner: Enchantment and Dissent
Robert Boyers
19 Class Struggle: Donald Davie at Stanford
Dana Gioia
20 V. S. Naipaul, the Drill Sergeant
Paul Theroux

Anthologies

Biographies, correspondences, diaries

Essays, journalism

Pedagogy in general

Further readings in pedagogy

Anthologies (charity campaign)

Biographies, correspondences, diaries (charity campaign)

Essays, journalism (charity campaign)

Pedagogy in general (charity campaign)

Further readings in pedagogy (charity campaign)

Writers and Their Teachers

By turns reflective, controversial, entertaining and moving, this book reveals how some of the most influential and best loved writers of our time were shaped by their inspirational teachers.