La Ciudad Solitaria

Aventuras en el arte de estar solo

Abstract

Laing, Olivia. The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone. Madrid: Capitán Swing, 2017. The book offers an intimate and essayistic approach to New York City through the lens of loneliness, weaving together the author's personal experience with the lives and works of artists such as Edward Hopper, Andy Warhol, David Wojnarowicz, and Henry Darger, whose trajectories were marked by isolation. Laing argues that the modern city is a space of clustered solitudes, where physical proximity does not guarantee emotional connection, and that art can be both a symptom and a redemption of that condition. The reviewer responds positively to the text's introspective sincerity and its contemporary humanism, which invites readers to understand and alleviate the solitudes sedimented in the collective memory of the city.