Bücher von Lydia Davis

The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis is the complete collection of short fiction from the world-renowned Lydia Davis.WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE 2013'What stories. Precise and piercing, extremely funny. Nearly all are unlike anything you've ever read' Metro'I loved these stories. They are so well-written, with such clarity of thought and precision of language. Excellent' William Leith, Evening Standard'Remarkable. Some of the most moving fiction - on death, marriage, children - of recent years. To read Collected Stories is to be reminded of the grand, echoing mind-chambers created by Sebald or recent Coetzee. A writer of vast intelligence and originality' Independent on Sunday'A body of work probably unique in American writing, in its combination of lucidity, aphoristic brevity, formal originality, sly comedy, metaphysical bleakness, philosophical pressure and human wisdom' New Yorker'One of the most respected writers in America' Financial Times'Davis is a high priestess of the startling, telling detail. She can make the most ordinary things, such as couples talking, or someone watching television, bizarre, almost mythical. I felt I had encountered a most original and daring mind' Colm Toibin, Daily TelegraphLydia Davis is the author of one novel and seven story collections, the most recent of which was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government for her fiction and her translations of modern writers including Maurice Blanchot, Michel Leiris and Marcel Proust.

Lydia Davis returns with a timeless collection of essays on literature and language.'Precise, concentrated, lyrical. No one writes like Lydia Davis, and everyone should read her' Hanif Kureishi'A writer as mighty as Kafka, as subtle as Flaubert, and as epoch-making, in her own way, as Proust'(Ali Smith)Lydia Davis gathered a selection of her non-fiction writing for the first time in 2019 with Essays. Now, she continues the project with Essays Two, focusing on the art of translation, the learning of foreign languages through reading, and her experience of translating, amongst others, Flaubert and Proust, about whom she writes with an unmatched understanding of the nuances of their styles.Every essay in this book is a revelation.

The first and only novel by Lydia Davis, winner of the Man Booker International Prize 2013.'It surprised me, over and over, to find that I was with such a young man. He was twenty-two when I met him. He turned twenty-three while I knew him, but by the time I turned thirty-five I did not know where he was anymore.'Mislabelled boxes, confusing notes, wrong turnings - such are the obstacles in the way of the unnamed narrator of The End of the Story as she organises her memories of a love affair into a novel. With compassion, wit and what seems to be candour, she seeks to determine what she actually knows about herself and her past, but we begin to suspect, along with her, that given the elusiveness of memory and understanding, any tale retrieved from the past must be fictionBack in print at last, this is Lydia Davis's first - and so far only - novel. 'Extraordinary' Newsday'Brilliant' New Yorker'Breathtakingly elegant' Details'Beautifully written' Marie Claire'Astonishing' ElleLydia Davis is the author of Collected Stories, one novel and six short story collections, most recently Can't and Won't. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and was named an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government for her fiction and her translations of modern writers, including Gustave Flaubert and Marcel Proust. She won the Man Booker International Prize in 2013.

From one of our most imaginative and inventive writers, a crystalline collection of perfectly modulated, sometimes harrowing and often hilarious investigations into the multifaceted ways in which human beings perceive each other and themselves. A couple suspects their friends think them boring; a woman resolves to see herself as nothing but then concludes she's set too high a goal; and a funeral home receives a letter rebuking it for linguistic errors. Lydia Davis once again proves in the words of the Los Angeles Times "one of the quiet giants in the world of American fiction."

Bereits in ihrem ersten Buch beweist Lydia Davis ihre große Meisterschaft in der kleinen Form. Sie betrachtet auf ihre trocken-humorige und so intelligente Art das, was zwischen uns und in uns selbst vorgehen kann. Auch noch so kleine Feinheiten und Details des Lebens entdeckt Davis und schenkt ihnen besondere Bedeutung. Eine Vielzahl an unterschiedlichsten Lebenssituationen und menschlichen Eigentümlichkeiten findet sich in den Stories, erzählt mit einem präzisen, klaren Blick: Alltagsspleens und -ängste, eben »ein paar Dinge, die mit mir nicht in Ordnung sind«; ein Kassensturz über eine beendete Beziehung; eine Mutter, die mit ihrer Tochter nie zufrieden ist; eine Kriminalgeschichte, die als Französischsprachkurs getarnt ist; das Rätsel, was es wirklich mit dem Brief eines Ex-Freundes auf sich hat; »Auszüge aus einem Leben«, die einen ganzen Lebensverlauf im Schnelldurchlauf erzählen - und so vieles mehr.Mit "Es ist, wie's ist" liegt jetzt das 1986 erschienene Debüt von Lydia Davis' großartiger Kurzprosa auf Deutsch vor - und somit sind die Collected Stories dieser Ausnahmeautorin vollständig übersetzt.

Ihre Erzählungen sind manchmal buchstäbliche Einzeiler; oder es sind lange geduldige Beobachtungen von Kühen im Laufe eines Winters vom Küchenfenster eines Landhauses aus. Ihre Stories können aber auch Träume sein, Beschwerdebriefe (an Tiefkühlerbsenproduzenten oder Autoren von Buchhändler-Werbebroschüren) oder Geschichten, die aus den Briefen Flauberts kondensiert wurden.Lydia Davis schreibt in allen Fällen mit großer Präzision, mit Witz und Intelligenz und einem geschärften Blick für die Unerfreulichkeiten des täglichen Lebens. Da sie nichts als gegeben hinnimmt, überschreitet sie auch ständig die Grenzen der literarischen Konventionen, der Genres und Gepflogenheiten - und das macht ihr Werk zu einer Fundgrube für überraschende Entdeckungen. Sie scheut weder das intellektuelle Vergnügen noch die Nähe der Intimität. Ob es sich um die ironische Aufzählung von Lesevorlieben handelt oder um die ungemein intimen Erinnerungen einer Frau an ihre verstorbene ältere Schwester, um die trocken notierten Schwierigkeiten mit renitenten Dienstmädchen oder die Essgewohnheiten von Großstadtneurotikern: Lydia Davis zu lesen erweitert nicht nur den Horizont, es weist uns auch auf unerwartete Freuden in unser aller rätselhaftem Alltag hin.

Mislabeled boxes, problems with visiting nurses, confusing notes, an outing to the county fair-such are the obstacles in the way of the unnamed narrator of The End of the Story as she attempts to organize her memories of a love affair into a novel. With compassion, wit, and what appears to be candor she seeks to determine what she actually knows about herself and her past, but we begin to suspect, along with her, that given the elusiveness of memory and understanding, any tale retrieved from the past must be fiction.

NATIONAL BESTSELLERThe New York Times . Los Angeles Times . The Boston GlobeHer stories may be literal one-liners: the entirety of "Bloomington" reads, "Now that I have been here for a little while, I can say with confidence that I have never been here before." Or they may be lengthier investigations of the havoc wreaked by the most mundane disruptions to routine: in "A Small Story About a Small Box of Chocolates," a professor receives a gift of thirty-two small chocolates and is paralyzed by the multitude of options she imagines for their consumption. The stories may appear in the form of letters of complaint; they may be extracted from Flaubert's correspondence; or they may be inspired by the author's own dreams, or the dreams of friends.What does not vary throughout Can't and Won't, Lydia Davis's fifth collection of stories, is the power of her finely honed prose. Davis is sharply observant; she is wry or witty or poignant. Above all, she is refreshing. Davis writes with bracing candor and sly humor about the quotidian, revealing the mysterious, the foreign, the alienating, and the pleasurable within the predictable patterns of daily life.

The Rendezvous is a beautiful and evocative first novel that blurs all lines between memoir and fiction. In a painfully sentimental journey, Louise, a sophisticated eighteen-year-old Parisian student, sits in a café awaiting the arrival of her long-absent mother, an aging hippie and former fashion model. As the hours pass and Louise waits, she reaches deeper and deeper into her store of memory, recalling the early failure of her parents' marriage. Louise remembers how brief and unfulfilling meetings with her mother have punctuated her safe and secure life with her father, a world-renowned conductor. Carefully walking the balance between anticipation and fear, Louise meditates upon the chaos of her mother's life, a life of decadence, drugs, and irresponsibility. Coming face-to-face with the powerful love she feels for her mother, Louise wryly acknowledges the complexity of a relationship filled with countless letdowns and unwavering devotion. Written with a wisdom that transcends age and the wit and savvy of a true survivor, The Rendezvous is a poignant examination of the transition to young adulthood and the often startling awareness of a parent's fallibility.

Can't and Won't is the new collection from Lydia Davis, one of the greatest short story writers alive.WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE 2013Lydia Davis has been universally acclaimed for the wit, insight and genre-defying formal inventiveness of her sparkling stories.With titles like 'A Story of Stolen Salamis', 'Letters to a Frozen Pea Manufacturer', 'A Small Story About a Small Box of Chocolates', and 'Can't and Won't', the stories in this new collection illuminate particular moments in ordinary lives and find in them the humorous, the ironic and the surprising.Above all the stories revel in and grapple with the joys and constraints of language - achieving always the extraordinary, unmatched precision which makes Lydia Davis one of the greatest contemporary writers on the international stage.Praise for Lydia Davis: 'What stories. Precise and piercing, extremely funny. Nearly all are unlike anything you've ever read'Metro'To read The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis is to be reminded of the grand, echoing mind-chambers created by Sebald or recent Coetzee. A writer of vast intelligence and originality' Independent on Sunday'Among my most favourite writers. Read her now!' A. M. HomesLydia Davis is the author of Collected Stories, one novel and six short story collections, the most recent of which was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and was named an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government for her fiction and her translations of modern writers, including Gustave Flaubert and Marcel Proust. She won the Man Booker International Prize in 2013.