Essays

Lydia Davis

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A crystalline collection of literary essays from the Man Booker International Prize-winning author of Can't and Won't

Lydia Davis's writing is a masterclass in control: wry, lucid, penetrating, every word placed deliberately. Here she presents a dazzling collection of literary essays, each one as beautifully formed, thought-provoking, playful and illuminating as her critically acclaimed short fiction. Ranging across her many creative influences, including Thomas Pynchon, Michel Leiris, Maurice Blanchot, Lucia Berlin and Joan Mitchell, she returns again and again to her own writing process, joyfully interrogating the limits of literature and the ways in which we can challenge and reinvent it.

Published: 19 November 2019
ISBN: 9780241371473
Imprint: Hamish Hamilton
Format: Hardback
Pages: 528
RRP: $50.00

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About the author

Lydia Davis

Lydia Davis is the author of one novel and several collections of short fiction, the latest of which is Samuel Johnson Is Indignant. She is also the translator of numerous works from the French by, among others, Maurice Blanchot, Pierre Jean Jouve and Michel Leiris, and was recently named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government.

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Praise for Essays

a cornucopia of illuminating and timeless observations on literature, art, and the craft of writing.
Publisher's Weekly

The unclassifiable writer and translator's collected nonfiction shows us a brilliant mind at work.
The New Republic

the beloved American author reflects on reading and writing in typically funny, incisive and tender style.
Stylist

Davis does for the essay what one of her subjects-Rimbaud-did for the prose poem: fires language with emotive, radiant wisdom.
Library Journal

masterful, lucid collection . . . no single piece could capture the essence of this extraordinary writer . . . Read these essays: see everything around you in a clear, fresh light
New Statesman