NYRB Classics
Berlin Stories
Robert Walser, edited by Jochen Greven, translated from the German and with an introduction by Susan Bernofsky
Robert Walser lived in Berlin from 1905 to 1913. This newly translated collection brings together his alternately celebratory, droll, and satirical sketches of the bustling German capital, from its theaters, cabarets, painters’ galleries, and literary salons, to the metropolitan street, markets, the Tiergarten, rapid-service restaurants, and the electric tram.
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Featured Titles
Walkabout
James Vance Marshall, introduction by Lee Siegel
NYRB Classics“A haunting little idyll in the same vein as A High Wind in Jamaica…tells of two children, a boy and a girl, sole survivors of a plane crash in the Australian bush. Their fragile veneer of modern culture clashes with the primitive soul of a boy who is making his tribal ‘walkabout.’” —Time
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An Ermine in Czernopol
Gregor von Rezzori, introduction by Daniel Kehlmann, translated from the German by Philip Boehm
NYRB ClassicsThe first of Rezzori’s three books based on memories of his Austro-Hungarian hometown, a “melting pot for dozens of ethnic groups, languages, creeds, temperaments, and customs.” While the story centers on the downfall of a once glamorous Hussar, it is really about childhood enchantment and the richness of a vanished world. “A flashing novel of ideas.” —Time
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Proud Beggars
Albert Cossery, introduction by Alyson Waters, translated from the French by Thomas W. Cushing
NYRB ClassicsCossery’s proud beggars—a former university professor, a hashish-dealing poet, and a would-be revolutionary office-clerk—live on the fringes of Cairo society, and they wouldn’t have it any other way. Each is suspected in the death of a young prostitute, but the detective charged with getting to the truth of the crime finds that he is no match for this band of outsiders.
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The Company They Kept, Volume Two: Writers on Unforgettable Friendships
edited by Robert B. Silvers
NYRB CollectionsA collection of twenty-seven accounts of friendships between some of the greatest artists and thinkers of our day. Among them are Isaiah Berlin on Boris Pasternak and Anna Akhmatova, Hector Bianciotti on the death of Borges, Bruce Chatwin on a drunken evening with George Ortiz, Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale on riding the subway with George Balanchine, Gore Vidal on Dawn Powell, and John Updike on Saul Steinberg.
More »Announcements
A Letter From Susan Bernofsky, Translator of Robert Walser's Berlin Stories
January 26, 2012
In 1905 Robert Walser packed his bags and left behind his native Switzerland for the bustling metropolis of Berlin. The fledgling author, twenty-seven years of age, had just published his first book of fiction, Fritz Kochers Aufsätze (Fritz Kocher's Essays), and moving to Berlin was the obvious next step for him to take in the pursuit of a proper literary career. Just a year before he had been supporting himself as an on-again-off-again bank clerk and copyist, but now he was looking to become a proper novelist, an endeavor that would require all his strength.
James Vance Marshall's Walkabout
January 12, 2012
The first NYRB Classic of 2012
January 6, 2012
"Twelve Months of Reading" in The Wall Street Journal
December 20, 2011
The Wall Street Journal asked 50 “friends” to recommend books that they enjoyed over the past year. Three NYRB Classics are included on that list.
Russell Hoban, 1925-2011
December 15, 2011
