Author of the Month: Robert Walser
Selected by the Bookshop
Our Author of the Month for April is Robert Walser, whose early works were admired by such writers as Kafka, Hesse, Zweig and Benjamin. Walser almost disappeared from view from the late 1920s, although he continued to write for many years, incessantly – even compulsively. It was only towards the end of his life, finding a champion and friend in Carl Seelig, that he began to find again the readership he deserves.
Plagued by mental illness and family tragedy, Walser is nonetheless an unexpectedly joyful writer, a miniaturist by inclination, often humorous, tangential and profound. The Walk, whose title story is perhaps Walser’s masterpiece, is a perfect place to start, but really every book is a delight.
Browse our booklist here, and come and see the books in person on our dedicated Walser table throughout April.
From the publisher:
Translated by Christopher Middleton and othersOne of the great works of European short fiction, by turns funny, reflective and profoundRanging from one-page fantasies to novella-length studies of everyday existence, The…
From the publisher:
Translated by Daniele PantanoThe first complete publication of Robert Walser’s poems translated into English.Admired by the likes of Kafka, Musil, and Walter Benjamin and acclaimed ‘unforgettable, heart-rending’ by J.…
From the publisher:
Edited by Jochen Greven, translated from the German and with an introduction by Susan BernofskyIn 1905 the young Swiss writer Robert Walser arrived in Berlin to join his older brother Karl, already an important stage-set designer,…
From the publisher:
Translated by Susan Bernofsky, Lydia Davis and Christopher MiddletonAn elegant collection, with gorgeous full-color art reproductions, Looking at Pictures presents a little-known aspect of the eccentric Swiss…
From the publisher:
Translated from German by Susan BernofskyWith a contribution by Walter BenjaminA Chirstine Burgin co-publication Now in paperback, with newly translated, additional microscripts and full-color paintings by Maira Kalman.Robert…
From the publisher:
Translated from the German by Tom WhalenLittle Snow Landscape opens in 1905 with an encomium to Robert Walser’s homeland and concludes in 1933 with a meditation on his childhood in Biel, the town of his birth, published in…
From the publisher:
Translated by Daniele Pantano and James ReidelThis book brings English-language readers works by Walser in a rare form: dramolette.Few writers have ever experienced such a steady rise in their reputation and public profile as…
From the publisher:
Translated from the German by Damion SearlsWith an introduction by Ben LernerA Schoolboy's Diary brings together more than seventy of Robert Walser's strange and wonderful stories, most never before available in English.…
From the publisher:
Translated from German by James Reidel and Daniele PantanoWith a contribution by Reto SorgFairy Tales gathers the unconventional verse dramolettes by the Swiss writer Robert Walser. Narrated in Walser’s…
From the publisher:
Translated by Christopher MiddletonRobert Walser's great masterpiece, reissued with a foreword by J. M. CoetzeeThe Institut Benjamenta: a school of humility for the unambitious. The young Jakob von Gunten arrives at this most curious of…
From the publisher:
A new translation from the German by Tom Whalen, with Nicole Köngeter and Annette Wiesner, afterword by Tom WhalenGirlfriends, Ghosts, and Other Stories brings together eighty-one brief texts…
From the publisher:
Translated from German by Anne PostenAfter a nervous breakdown in 1929, Robert Walser spent the remaining twenty-seven years of his life in mental asylums. In 1936, Carl Seelig — an admirer who became Walser’s friend and…
From the publisher:
The first English-language biography of one of the great literary talents of the twentieth century, written by his award-winning translator Finalist for the 2021 NBCC Award for Biography “[An] authoritative, moving…
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