Agnes
Peter Stamm
(Author)
Michael Hofmann
(Translator)
21,000+ Reviews
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Description
Peter Stamm's best-selling debut novel, Agnes, now available for the first time in paperback. "Write a story about me," Agnes said to her lover, "so I know what you think of me." So he started to write the story of everything that had happened to them from the moment they met. At first, he works with Agnes to create a narrative that is most true to life, but as time passes and he grows more enamored with the narrative he has begun, he continues writing on his own, imagining a future for them after he reaches the present. Happy couples do not necessarily make for compelling reading, and as Agnes sees the unexpected plot he has planned for her, the line between fiction and reality begins to blur. In this unforgettable and haunting novel Stamm incisively examines the power of storytelling to influence thought and behavior, reaching a chilling conclusion.
Product Details
Price
$14.99
$13.94
Publisher
Other Press (NY)
Publish Date
September 24, 2019
Pages
160
Dimensions
5.2 X 7.9 X 0.5 inches | 0.4 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9781590511534
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About the Author
Peter Stamm is the author of the novels The Sweet Indifference of the World, To the Back of Beyond, All Days Are Night, Seven Years, On a Day Like This, Unformed Landscape, and Agnes, and the short-story collections We're Flying and In Strange Gardens and Other Stories. His award-winning books have been translated into more than forty languages. For his entire body of work and his accomplishments in fiction, he was short-listed for the Man Booker International Prize in 2013, and in 2014 he won the prestigious Friedrich Hölderlin Prize. He lives in Switzerland. Michael Hofmann has translated the work of Gottfried Benn, Hans Fallada, Franz Kafka, Joseph Roth, and many others. In 2012 he was awarded the Thornton Wilder Prize for Translation by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His Selected Poems was published in 2009, Where Have You Been? Selected Essays in 2014, and One Lark, One Horse: Poems in 2019. He lives in Florida and London.
Reviews
"A kind of parable...simple and haunting." --New York Review of Books
"Agnes is a moody, unsettled, and elusive little fable--and it's always interesting." --Wall Street Journal "A haunting psychological study." --The New Yorker "A provocative and mesmerizing book." --Publishers Weekly "An urgent and unsettling read." --Library Journal "This short novel should appeal to readers enchanted by [Stamm's] elliptical style...an extended meditation on the interrelationship between life and fiction." --Kirkus Reviews "This tale moves briskly and plausibly toward the dark conclusion it announces at the outset. Stamm manages to dramatize the truism that writers become caught up in the world their words create, that readers become enamored of characters in fiction, and both mourn when characters suffer...gripping...unsettling." --Booklist
"Agnes is a moody, unsettled, and elusive little fable--and it's always interesting." --Wall Street Journal "A haunting psychological study." --The New Yorker "A provocative and mesmerizing book." --Publishers Weekly "An urgent and unsettling read." --Library Journal "This short novel should appeal to readers enchanted by [Stamm's] elliptical style...an extended meditation on the interrelationship between life and fiction." --Kirkus Reviews "This tale moves briskly and plausibly toward the dark conclusion it announces at the outset. Stamm manages to dramatize the truism that writers become caught up in the world their words create, that readers become enamored of characters in fiction, and both mourn when characters suffer...gripping...unsettling." --Booklist
