In Case of Loss
Published on 28. November 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
192 pages
978-1-913505-78-3 (ISBN)
Description
In Case of Loss reveals Seiler's essays to be different to, but on a par with, his fiction and poetry. Beautifully anecdotal and associative, they throw a light on literature and his East German background, including the Soviet-era mining community he grew up in, and are full of insight, humanity and an attention to overlooked objects and lives.
'It is never about reconstructing. Memory does not bring back what was forgotten. Indeed, the person who remembers doesn't even know for sure that what is remembered ever existed. . . Seiler's inimitable style as a storyteller, the wilful waywardness and weight of what he has to say, the intensity (and personal tact) of his engagement with the landscapes of others' poetries and lives all make these essays a lively portrait of the writer surrounded by his library. Seiler sets standards for reflection in art today. At the same time, he gives us a sense of the pagan-sacramental importance of objects in poetry.' Sibylle Cramer, Sueddeutsche Zeitung
'It is never about reconstructing. Memory does not bring back what was forgotten. Indeed, the person who remembers doesn't even know for sure that what is remembered ever existed. . . Seiler's inimitable style as a storyteller, the wilful waywardness and weight of what he has to say, the intensity (and personal tact) of his engagement with the landscapes of others' poetries and lives all make these essays a lively portrait of the writer surrounded by his library. Seiler sets standards for reflection in art today. At the same time, he gives us a sense of the pagan-sacramental importance of objects in poetry.' Sibylle Cramer, Sueddeutsche Zeitung
Reviews / Votes
'It is never about reconstructing. Memory does not bring back what was forgotten. Indeed, the person who remembers doesn't even know for sure that what is remembered ever existed. . . Seiler's inimitable style as a storyteller, the wilful waywardness and weight of what he has to say, the intensity (and personal tact) of his engagement with the landscapes of others' poetries and lives all make these essays a lively portrait of the writer surrounded by his library. Seiler sets standards for reflection in art today. At the same time, he gives us a sense of the pagan-sacramental importance of objects in poetry.' Sibylle Cramer, Sueddeutsche Zeitung 'Served by a trio of stellar translators, And Other Stories has done a great service bringing these three works into English. They will allow a new audience to enter Lutz Seiler's haunted world and admire his singular voice in its different refractions.' Karen Leeder, Times Literary Supplement 'We see the "fascination of the factual", but also the struggle to find a voice and shape the urgent material of reality. Many of the essays turn on origins and how to narrate history, venturing back to childhood, conscription, early poems, places of personal significance and some of the author's great literary predecessors and mentors, including Peter Huchel, Juergen Becker and Ernst Meister.' Karen Leeder, Times Literary SupplementMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
High Wycombe
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 196 mm
Width: 126 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
184 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-913505-78-3 (9781913505783)
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Other editions
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Persons
Poet, novelist and essayist Lutz Seiler was born in Gera, Thuringia, in 1963 and today lives in Wilhelmshorst, near Berlin, and in Stockholm. His writing has won many prizes, including the Leipzig Book Fair Prize, the Ingeborg Bachmann and the German Book Prize, and been translated into twenty-five languages. Martyn Crucefix has published six full collections of poetry. His translation of Rilke's Duino Elegies was shortlisted for the 2007 Popescu Prize for European Poetry Translation, while These Numbered Days, translations of poems by Peter Huchel, won the 2020 Schlegel-Tieck Translation Prize. His new collection Between A Drowning Man was published in 2023.