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Speaking to the Rose - Robert Walser

By Robert Walser

Release Date: 2005-09-01

Genre: Fiction & Literature

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The Swiss writer of whom Hermann Hesse famously declared, “If he had a hundred thousand readers, the world would be a better place,” Robert Walser (1878–1956) is only now finding an audience among English-speaking readers commensurate with his merits—if not with his self-image. After a wandering, precarious life during which he produced poems, essays, stories, and novels, Walser entered an insane asylum, saying, “I am not here to write, but to be mad.” Many of the unpublished works he left were in fact written in an idiosyncratically abbreviated script that was for years dismissed as an impenetrable private cipher. Fourteen texts from these so-called pencil manuscripts are included in this volume—rich evidence that Walser’s microscripts, rather than the work of incipient madness, were in actuality the product of desperate genius building a last reserve, and as such, a treasure in modern literature. With a brisk preface and a chronology of Walser’s life and work, this collection of fifty translations of short prose pieces covers the middle to later years of the writer’s oeuvre. It provides unparalleled insight into Walser’s creative process, along with a unique opportunity to experience the unfolding of his rare and eccentric gift. His novels The Robber (Nebraska 2000) and Jakob von Gunten are also available in English translation.

Speaking to the Rose - Robert Walser

By Robert Walser

Release Date: 2005-09-01

Genre: Fiction & Literature

(0 ratings)
Read Download
The Swiss writer of whom Hermann Hesse famously declared, “If he had a hundred thousand readers, the world would be a better place,” Robert Walser (1878–1956) is only now finding an audience among English-speaking readers commensurate with his merits—if not with his self-image. After a wandering, precarious life during which he produced poems, essays, stories, and novels, Walser entered an insane asylum, saying, “I am not here to write, but to be mad.” Many of the unpublished works he left were in fact written in an idiosyncratically abbreviated script that was for years dismissed as an impenetrable private cipher. Fourteen texts from these so-called pencil manuscripts are included in this volume—rich evidence that Walser’s microscripts, rather than the work of incipient madness, were in actuality the product of desperate genius building a last reserve, and as such, a treasure in modern literature. With a brisk preface and a chronology of Walser’s life and work, this collection of fifty translations of short prose pieces covers the middle to later years of the writer’s oeuvre. It provides unparalleled insight into Walser’s creative process, along with a unique opportunity to experience the unfolding of his rare and eccentric gift. His novels The Robber (Nebraska 2000) and Jakob von Gunten are also available in English translation.

More by Robert Walser

Jakob von Gunten

Jakob von Gunten

Selected Stories

The Walk

Berlin Stories

Der GehĂŒlfe

The Tanners

Geschwister Tanner

ProsastĂŒcke

The Assistant

A Schoolboy's Diary and Other Stories

Girlfriends, Ghosts, and Other Stories

PEN America 12: Correspondences

Speaking to the Rose

Kleine Dichtungen

Little Snow Landscape

AufsÀtze

Fairy Tales

Running with the Devil

El paseo

Jakob von Gunten

Sueños

La rosa

The Christopher Small Reader

The Battle of Sempach

Kleine Dichtungen

The Battle of Sempach

AufsÀtze

Vita di poeta

Sulle donne

Lo mejor que sĂ© decir sobre la mĂșsica

Der GehĂŒlfe

AusgewÀhlte Werke von Robert Walser

Los hermanos Tanner

Desde la oficina

Geschwister Tanner

Historias de amor

Geschichten

I fratelli Tanner

Coƛ w rodzaju opowiadania

La passeggiata

The Battle of Sempach

Seeland

Ritratti di pittori

Jakob von Gunten. Dziennik

L’assistente

Tanner Siblings

ZbĂłj

I temi di Fritz Kocher

The Christopher Small Reader

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