Description
The first Englishlanguage biography of one of the great literary talents of the twentieth century written by his awardwinning translator
The great SwissGerman modernist author Robert Walser lived eccentrically on the fringes of society shocking his Berlin friends by enrolling in butler school and later developing an urbannomad lifestyle in the Swiss capital Bern before checking himself into a psychiatric clinic A connoisseur of power differentials his pronounced interest in everything inconspicuous and modestsocial outcasts and artists as well as the impoverished marginalized and forgottenprompted W G Sebald to dub him a clairvoyant of the small His revolutionary use of short prose forms won him the admiration of Franz Kafka Walter Benjamin Robert Musil and many others
He was long believed an outsider by conviction but Susan Bernofsky presents a more nuanced view in this immaculately researched and beautifully written biography Setting Walser in the context of early twentieth century European history she provides illuminating analysis of his extraordinary life and work bearing witness to his extreme artistic delight
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