Writers of the modern essay can trace their chosen genre all the way back to Michel de Montaigne (1533-92). But save for the recent notable best seller How to Live: A Life of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell, Montaigne is largely ignored. After Montaigne-a collection of twenty-four new personal essays intended as tribute-aims to correct this collective lapse of memory and introduce modern readers and writers to their stylistic forebear.
Though it´s been over four hundred years since he began writing his essays, Montaigne´s writing is still fresh, and his use of the form as a means of self-exploration in the world around him reads as innovative-even by modern standards. He is, simply put, the writer to whom all essayists are indebted. Each contributor has chosen one of Montaigne´s 107 essays and has written his/her own essay of the same title and on the same theme, using a quote from Montaigne´s essay as an epigraph. The overall effect is akin to a covers album, with each writer offering his or her own interpretation and stylistic verve to Montaigne´s themes in ways that both reinforce and challenge the French writer´s prose, ideas, and forms. Featuring a who´s who of contemporary essayists, After Montaigne offers astartling engagement with Montaigne and the essay form while also pointing the way to the genre´s potential new directions.