Get personalized recommendations and earn points toward a free book!
Before you go...
Check Out
The Bestselling Books of All Time
See the List
King by John Berger
Read An Excerpt

Look Inside

Read An Excerpt

King

A Street Story

A Street Story

By John Berger

By John Berger

By John Berger

By John Berger

Best Seller

Part of Vintage International

Part of Vintage International

Paperback $14.00

Nov 14, 2000 | 208 Pages

Ebook $5.99

Nov 07, 2012 | 208 Pages

All Formats
+
    King by John Berger
    Paperback
    Nov 14, 2000 | 208 Pages
    See All Formats (1) +

    Paperback
    –

    • Paperback $14.00

      Nov 14, 2000 | 208 Pages

    Ebook
    +

    • Ebook $5.99

      Nov 07, 2012 | 208 Pages

    Buy the Ebook:

    About King

    With the poetic acuity that renders his work timeless, Booker Prize-winning author John Berger brings us a twenty-four hour chronicle of homelessness. Beside a highway, in a wasteland furnished with smashed trucks and broken washing machines, lives a homeless community of once-hopeful individuals, now abandoned by the twentieth century.

    King, our narrator, is the guardian of a homeless couple, stealing meat from the butcher and sharing the warmth of his flesh. His canine sensibility affords him both amnesty from human hardship and rare insight into his companions’ lives.  Through his senses we see–clearly and unsentimentally–the dignity and strength that can survive within chaos and pain.

    About King

    In this book you will be led to a place you haven’t been, from where few stories come. You will be led by King, a dog–or is he a dog?–to a wasteland beside the highway called Saint Valéry. Here, at the end of the twentieth century, among smashed trucks, old boilers, and broken washing machines, live Liberto, Malak, Jack, Corinna, Danny, Anna, Joachim, Saul, Alfonso, and Vico and Vica.

    Listen to King’s voice as he tells a different kind of story: twenty-four hours pass and lives are lived. It is good to have survived another winter, for now it is spring, when the nights, though cold, are no longer harsh enough to kill. The wet season is over, and with it the hopelessness of damp. Today the sun will shine: of what else will the day be made?

    King is at once a furious homage to the homeless and a lyrical meditation on language and experience. The bitter yet celebratory prose speaks to us all.

    Read An Excerpt

    Read An Excerpt

    Also by John Berger

    Bento's Sketchbook
    Hold Everything Dear
    Here Is Where We Meet
    Selected Essays of John Berger
    The Shape of a Pocket
    See all books by John Berger

    Also by John Berger

    Bento's Sketchbook
    Hold Everything Dear
    Here Is Where We Meet
    Selected Essays of John Berger
    The Shape of a Pocket
    See all books by John Berger

    About John Berger

    John Berger was born in London in 1926. He is well known for his novels and stories as well as for his works of nonfiction, including several volumes of art criticism. His first novel, A Painter of Our Time, was published in… More about John Berger

    About John Berger

    John Berger was born in London in 1926. He is well known for his novels and stories as well as for his works of nonfiction, including several volumes of art criticism. His first novel, A Painter of Our Time, was published in… More about John Berger

    Product Details

    Category: Literary Fiction

    Paperback | $14.00
    Published by Vintage
    Nov 14, 2000 | 208 Pages | 5-3/16 x 8 | ISBN 9780375705342

    Category: Literary Fiction

    Ebook | $5.99
    Published by Vintage
    Nov 07, 2012 | 208 Pages | ISBN 9780307794307

    People Who Read King Also Read

    ‹ ›
    Meddling Kids
    Beasts of Burden Volume 1: Animal Rites
    The Odyssey
    Breaking Creed
    Suspect
    Murder, She Barked
    Flame of Sevenwaters
    The Heart of a Dog
    Rebelión en la granja / Animal Farm
    The Dog Stars
    A Conspiracy of Friends
    The Lucky Dog Matchmaking Service
    Walking Back to Happiness
    Faithful Ruslan
    Stay
    Hexed
    Junkyard Dogs
    The Search
    We Think the World of You
    Dog Stories
    The Hound of the Baskervilles
    The Call of the Wild and White Fang
    The End of the Road
    A Killer Plot
    Heroic Measures
    Wild Animals I Have Known
    Watchers
    White Night
    Dog Days
    Walking in Circles Before Lying Down
    The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
    Pug Hill
    The Hound of the Baskervilles
    Deerskin
    Putting on the Dog
    Animal Farm
    Dogwalker
    The Accidental Tourist
    Garfield at Large
    Disgrace
    Black Dogs
    To Say Nothing of the Dog
    Gone to the Dogs
    Wish You Were Here
    Jack London: Novels and Stories (LOA #6)

    Inspired by Your Browsing History

    Praise

    "King delights in the power of the imagination to transform small enjoyments into a full life."–The Baltimore Sun

    "King is relentlessly unsentimental and heartbreaking."–Los Angeles Times

    "Berger’s ambition to explore his political and moral beliefs through fiction has never been more fully realized."–Times Literary Supplement

    "Berger seamlessly melds literature and conscience here." —

    Looking for More Great Reads?
    Download our Spring Fiction Sampler Now
    Back to Top

    Visit other sites in the Penguin Random House Network

    Brightly

    Raise kids who love to read
    TASTE img

    TASTE

    An online magazine for today’s home cook

    LitFlash

    The eBooks you want at the lowest prices

    Read it Forward

    Read it first. Pass it on!