DC Public Library System

Campo Santo, W.G. Sebald ; translated by Anthea Bell

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 209-220)

illustrations

no index present

non fiction

Campo Santo

bibliography

55146640

W.G. Sebald ; translated by Anthea Bell

These sixteen moving essays contain Sebald's trademark themes--the power of memory and personal history, the connections between images in the arts and life, the existence of ghosts in both places and artifacts. Four essays pay tribute to Corsica, weaving elegiacally between past and present on the Mediterranean isle. In "A Little Excursion to Ajaccio, " Sebald visits the birthplace of Napoleon and muses on the hints of a great man's future in his childhood home. Several essays on European writers such as Kafka. Nabokov, and Gunter Grass blend criticism with political observation and memoir, examining how literature can be an attempt at restitution for the injustices of the real world. Dazzling in its erudition, accessible in its deep emotion, Campo Santo confirms Sebald's place beside Proust and Nabokov, great writers who perceived the invisible connections that determine our lives

A little excursion to Ajaccio -- Campo Santo -- The Alps in the sea -- La cour de l'ancienne école -- Strangeness, integration and crisis: on Peter Handke's play Kaspar -- Between history and natural history: on the literary description of total destruction -- Constructs of mourning : Günter Grass and Wolfgang Hildesheimer -- Des Häschens kind, der kleine Has (The little hare, child of the hare): on the poet Ernst Herbeck's totem animal -- To the brothel by way of Switzerland: on Kafka's travel diaries -- Dream textures: a brief note on Nabokov -- Kafka goes to the movies -- Scomber scombrus, or the common mackerel: on pictures by Jan Peter Tripp -- The mystery of the red-brown skin: an approach to Bruce Chatwin -- Moments musicaux -- An attempt at restitution -- Acceptance speech to the Collegium of the German Academy