The Book of Franza and Requiem for Fanny Goldmann
10 best books like The Book of Franza and Requiem for Fanny Goldmann (Ingeborg Bachmann): The Weight of Things, Alberta and Freedom, Mauve Desert, Night, Textermination: A Novel, Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing, Amras, The Book of Questions: Volume I [I. The Book of Questions, II. The Book of Yukel, III. Return to the Book], The Man of Jasmine & Other Texts, Repetition
| Author | Marianne Fritz |
| ISBN | 0989760774 |
The Weight of Things is the first book, and the first translated book, and possibly the only translatable book by Austrian writer Marianne Fritz (1948–2007). For after winning acclaim with this novel—awarded the Robert Walser Prize in 1978—she embarked on a 10,000-page literary project called...
| Author | Cora Sandel |
| ISBN | 0720612632 |
Cora Sandel was one of the most important Scandinavian writers of the 20th century and this is the second volume in her richly acclaimed Alberta trilogy. Alberta Selmer escapes from her cold suffocating provincial life in Norway to seek out the summer riches in Paris: a city where the bohemians will...
| Author | Nicole Brossard |
| ISBN | 1552451720 |
First published in 1987, Nicole Brossard's classic novel returns to Coach House in a new edition. A seminal text in Canadian and feminist literature, Mauve Desert is a must-read for readers and writers alike.
This is both a single novel and three separate novels in one. In the first, Mauve Desert,...
| Author | Edna O'Brien |
| ISBN | 0618126899 |
Edna O'Brien's classic novel NIGHT takes us through one long, sleepless night with Mary Hooligan. From the center of her bed, "a four poster no less," Mary recalls her fertile past, from her childhood in the Irish countryside to the love affairs she has confronted since leaving for English shores. Wistful,...
| Author | Christine Brooke-Rose |
| ISBN | 0811212165 |
In her latest novel, Textermination, the eminent British novelist/critic Christine Brooke-Rose pulls a wide array of characters out of the great works of literature and drops them into the middle of the San Francisco Hilton. Emma Bovary, Emma Woodhouse, Captain Ahab, Odysseus, Huck Finn... all...
| Author | Hélène Cixous |
| ISBN | 0231076592 |
"Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing" is a poetic, insightful, and ultimately moving exploration of 'the strange science of writing.' In a magnetic, irresistible narrative, Cixous reflects on the writing process and explores three distinct areas essential for 'great' writing: "The School of the...
| Author | Thomas Bernhard |
| ISBN | 3518380060 |
alternate-cover edition here
»Das Wesen der Krankheit ist so dunkel als das Wesen des Lebens.« Dieses Zitat von Novalis steht als Motto über der 1964 geschriebenen Erzählung Thomas Bernhards. Beschrieben wird die letzte Phase im Auflösungsprozeß einer Familie, Ursache und Wirkung...
| Author | Edmond Jabès |
| ISBN | 0819562475 |
This is probably the most important book I've read so far this year. It's sublime and I hope to write a proper review of it someday. Jabès redefined what poetry could be and how it can be presented. There is so much in here to reflect on-- even taking three months to read it felt like I was rushing. An infinitely...
| Author | Unica Zürn |
| ISBN | 0947757805 |
In 1970, Unica Zurn, the companion and lover of the Surrealist artist Hans Bellmer, threw herself from the sixth floor window of their apartment in Paris. Her suicide was the culmination of thirteen years of mental crises which are described with disarming, honest lucidity in 'The Man Of Jasmine',...
Set in 1960, this novel tells of Filib Kobal's journey from his home in Carinthia to Slovenia on the trail of his missing brother, Gregor. He is armed only with two of Gregor's books: a copy book from agricultural school, and a Slovenian - German dictionary, in which Gregor has marked certain words. The...
| Author | Tove Jansson |
| ISBN | 0394499077 |
I've always wondered why more books weren't written about the elderly, yet so many books are written about the young. Maybe we can all look back on youth, but we don't know much about being old. Maybe we only want to write about being old when we're old, and when we get to be old, we're too tired to write about...
Quel est le destin d’une ouvrière, ou plutôt comment échapper à son destin quand on est ouvrière ? Le plus simple : le mariage. Encore faut-il choisir avec circonspection son futur époux et se garder des séductions du sexe. L’amante doit apprendre à gérer son corps jeune et attrayant,...
| Author | Christa Wolf |
| ISBN | 0374517754 |
UTOPIA = No place = Kein Ort. Nirgends
Oh Christa Wolf! The pain that you put into this account of being lost in a utopia clashing with life to create a perfectly real dystopia, where imagination is not needed to enhance and expand experience, but to scale it down to acceptable levels.
"UNLEBBARES...
| Author | Andrea Dworkin |
| ISBN | 0941423883 |
I describe reading a great book as running downhill, but this was more like being pushed and rolled. I have so much regard for Andrea Dworkin, but I'm glad she didn't sully her reputation with a second fictional novel.
This was pretty terrible because of the way it was written...although if I...
| Author | Joseph von Eichendorff |
| ISBN | 3150185394 |
Die romantische Sehnsucht nach dem verlorenen Paradies und die Gefährdung des Menschen auf der Suche danach sind Gegenstand dieser Erzählung. In vielfältiger, oft symbolischer Weise erscheint dieses Verlangen nach der "schönen alten Zeit": Der junge Dichter Florio begegnet auf der Reise...
| Author | Joseph Roth |
| ISBN | 1862076766 |
A haunting glimpse into the early 20th Century before Hitler's rise to power, The Spider's Web is as much psychological as it is political, giving a startling look into the life and mind of a main character who is about average as far as people go, yet lacking in personal ethics and morality enough to jump...
Las muñecas desventradas por mis antiguas manos de muñeca, la desilusión al encontrar pura estopa (pura estepa tu memoria): el padre, que tuvo que ser Tiresias, Ilota en el río. Pero tú, ¿por qué te dejaste asesinar escuchando cuentos de álamos nevados? Yo quería que mis dedos de muñeca penetraran...
Stories and Essays of Mina Loy
| Author | Mina Loy |
| ISBN | 1564786307 |
Stories and Essays of Mina Loy is the first book-length volume of Mina Loy’s narrative writings and critical work ever published. This volume brings together her short fiction, as well as hybrid works that include modernized fairy tales, a Socratic dialogue, and a ballet. Loy’s narratives address...
| Author | Wolfgang Hohlbein |
| ISBN | 3453099737 |
Mehrere leitende Mitarbeiter des Pharmakonzerns Sillmann bringen sich auf außergewöhnliche Weise um, nachdem sie mit ihrem eigenen Blut den Namen des Todesengel Azrael an die Wand geschrieben haben. Hinweise auf Fremdverschulden scheint es nicht zu geben, bis man im Blut eines der Toten eine...
| Author | Leonora Carrington |
| ISBN | 0525485406 |
A couple months ago, I was captivated by surrealist Leonora Carrington's bizarre geriatric adventure novel The Hearing Trumpet. Following up with the help of the Brooklyn Library's mysterious Central Storage, I tracked down this excellent volume, collecting a number of works from much earlier...
| Author | Anna Kavan |
| ISBN | 0720611237 |
This collection of stories, mostly interlinked and largely autobiographical, chart the descent of the narrator from the onset of neurosis to final incarceration in a Swiss clinic. The sense of paranoia, of persecution by a foe or force that is never given a name, evokes The Trial by Kafka, a writer with...
