The Afternoon of a Writer

by Peter Handke, Ralph Manheim (Translator)

Overview

In Nobel Prize-winning author Peter Handke's The Afternoon of a Writer, a writer, fearful of losing his abilities and hence his connection with the world, takes an afternoon walk and has several encounters that reaffirm his confidence...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250767264
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	02/25/2020
Pages:	96
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Peter Handke was born in Grifen, Austria, in 1942. His many novels include The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, and Don Juan, all published by FSG. Handke’s dramatic works include Kaspar and the screenplay for Wim Wenders’s Wings of Desire. In 2014, Handke was awarded the International Ibsen Award. In 2019, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience.”

Editorial Reviews

This deceptively simple, yet highly challenging and original novella reaffirms Handke's preeminence on the international literary scene. One December afternoon in an unidentified German city, the nameless narrator, a writer, takes a walk and reflects on the perilous presumption of his vocation and his terror at the tenuousness of his contact with inspiration. Each word is a lifeline, conjuring up the world and magically reformulating it. But at the same time, the writer and his text strain at the limits of language and understanding. Believing that the writer is dispossessed in 20th-century culture, the narrator is thrown back upon himself to confront the nullity of his discourse; his youthful faith in his calling has collapsed into disenchantment and fear that by withdrawing from society to write, he has de-legitimized his voice. Yet the narrator concludes with the affirmation to ``continue to work the most ephemeral of materials, my breath,'' without aid or concealment of literature's tired props, thus reassuring Handke's admirers that the author will continue to tax and thrill them with his Mallarmean opacities. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The day is rich for the anonymous writer who is the protagonist of this book. In the morning he grapples with the Beckettian dilemma, giving shape to nothing with the tissue of delicate language, always aware that the last word may be the end of his ability to express. A page, maybe two, and then comes the giddy reward of an afternoon's walk through the city. Observation and intuition are this writer's tools as he recharges himself with the experience of life. The simplicity of snow and flowers gives way to the complexity of the ``Gin Mill'' crowd and a confrontation with the Translator. Handke is a strikingly talented Austrian writer who, in this novel, focuses on the process of writing. This pithy text is equally important for writers and readers since its eminently accessible investigation of creativity leads both toward a realization of their common need for experience. While other writers have exhaustingly failed to make clear the intricacies of this delicate creative process, Handke succeeds with stylish simplicity.-- Paul E. Hutchison, Fishermans Paradise, Bellefonte, Pa.

Library Journal