Silent Catastrophes
Essays in Austrian Literature
Published on 23. January 2025
544 pages
978-0-241-96572-6 (ISBN)
Description
'We have become suspicious, rightly, of claims for literary greatness, but in Sebald's case the claim was triumphantly justified. He was, he is, the real thing' John Banville, Guardian
From acclaimed critic, novelist and academic W. G. Sebald, author of Austerlitz and The Rings of Saturn, a collection of essay on the Austrian writers who meant so much to him - appearing for the first time in English
As a German in self-chosen exile from his country of birth, Sebald found a particular affinity with these writers from a neighbouring nation. The traumatic evolution of Austria from vast empire to diminutive Alpine republic, followed by its annexation by Germany, meant that concepts such as 'home/land', 'borderland' and 'exile' occupy a prominent role in its literature, just as they would in Sebald's own.
Through a series of remarkable close readings of texts by Bernhard, Stifter, Kafka, Handke, Roth and more, Sebald charts both the pathologies which so often drove their work and the seismic historical forces which shaped them. This sequence of essays will be a revelation to Sebald's English-language readers, tracing as they do so many of the themes which animate his own literary writings, to which these essays form a kind of prelude.
'A writer whose life and work has become a wonderful vindication of literary culture in all its subtle and entrancing complexity' Guardian
'Sebald was probably the greatest intellect and voice of the late twentieth century' Antony Beevor, The Times
From acclaimed critic, novelist and academic W. G. Sebald, author of Austerlitz and The Rings of Saturn, a collection of essay on the Austrian writers who meant so much to him - appearing for the first time in English
As a German in self-chosen exile from his country of birth, Sebald found a particular affinity with these writers from a neighbouring nation. The traumatic evolution of Austria from vast empire to diminutive Alpine republic, followed by its annexation by Germany, meant that concepts such as 'home/land', 'borderland' and 'exile' occupy a prominent role in its literature, just as they would in Sebald's own.
Through a series of remarkable close readings of texts by Bernhard, Stifter, Kafka, Handke, Roth and more, Sebald charts both the pathologies which so often drove their work and the seismic historical forces which shaped them. This sequence of essays will be a revelation to Sebald's English-language readers, tracing as they do so many of the themes which animate his own literary writings, to which these essays form a kind of prelude.
'A writer whose life and work has become a wonderful vindication of literary culture in all its subtle and entrancing complexity' Guardian
'Sebald was probably the greatest intellect and voice of the late twentieth century' Antony Beevor, The Times
Reviews / Votes
A profoundly affirming book about the potential for literature . . . Since his death in 2001 it has become increasingly clear that WG Sebald is not just a very good writer, but quite simply one of the few essential writers of this generation . . . Nobody captures the epitaph quality of pastoral as well as he did * The Scotsman * Fascinating . . . A group portrait of a country and an empire in crisis . . . The reader will soon find not only Sebald's trademark concerns emerging but unexpected reflections on how we might navigate the end of empire and the rise of authoritarianism . . . For someone who may be feeling, in 2025, that their own homeland has become hostile and uncanny, there's much here to help make sense of that feeling of eeriness, and a repeated attempt to chart some kind of path forward * New Republic * This book is full of strange and tender moments when Sebald's feeling for his subject translates into scenes and images that might have come straight from Austerlitz or The Rings of Saturn . . . Sebald push[es] past literary history, criticism or biography to another, visionary realm * Art Review * Reading him feels like being spoken to in a dream . . . An extraordinary presence in contemporary literature * New Yorker * Sebald is surely a major European author . . . he reaches the heights of epiphanic beauty only encountered normally in the likes of Proust * Independent * W.G. Sebald, the greatest writer of our time -- Peter Carey Most writers, even good ones, write of what can be written. . . . The very greatest write of what cannot be written. . . . I think of Akhmatova and Primo Levi, for example, and of W. G. Sebald * New York Times * Sebald is the Joyce of the 21st Century * The Times *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
File size
4,22 MB
ISBN-13
978-0-241-96572-6 (9780241965726)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
01/2026
Penguin Books Ltd
€16.50
Available immediately
Book
01/2025
Hamish Hamilton Ltd
€31.50
Available immediately
Persons
W. G. Sebald (Author)
W. G. Sebald was born in Wertach im Allgaeu, Germany, in 1944 and died in December 2001. He studied German language and literature in Freiburg, Switzerland and Manchester. In 1966 he took up a position as an assistant lecturer at the University of Manchester and settled permanently in England in 1970. He was Professor of European Literature at the University of East Anglia and is the author of The Emigrants, The Rings of Saturn, Vertigo, Austerlitz, After Nature, On the Natural History of Destruction, Unrecounted, Campo Santo, A Place in the Country and a selection of poetry, Across the Land and the Water.
Jo Catling (Translator)
Jo Catling taught German and European literature at the University of East Anglia where she worked closely with W G Sebald from 1993 until his death. Translator of Sebalds A Place in the Country, she is editor (with Richard Hibbitt) of Saturn's Moons: W G Sebald - A Handbook (Legenda, 2011) and has published widely on Sebald and on Rainer Maria Rilke.
W. G. Sebald was born in Wertach im Allgaeu, Germany, in 1944 and died in December 2001. He studied German language and literature in Freiburg, Switzerland and Manchester. In 1966 he took up a position as an assistant lecturer at the University of Manchester and settled permanently in England in 1970. He was Professor of European Literature at the University of East Anglia and is the author of The Emigrants, The Rings of Saturn, Vertigo, Austerlitz, After Nature, On the Natural History of Destruction, Unrecounted, Campo Santo, A Place in the Country and a selection of poetry, Across the Land and the Water.
Jo Catling (Translator)
Jo Catling taught German and European literature at the University of East Anglia where she worked closely with W G Sebald from 1993 until his death. Translator of Sebalds A Place in the Country, she is editor (with Richard Hibbitt) of Saturn's Moons: W G Sebald - A Handbook (Legenda, 2011) and has published widely on Sebald and on Rainer Maria Rilke.
