Acquisitions (6): W. G. Sebald

W. G. Sebald: Across the Land and the Water

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W. G. Sebald (1944-2001)

Sebald's Selected Poems (2011)

[Acquired: Thursday, October 18, 2012]:

Sebald, W. G. Across the Land and the Water: Selected Poems, 1964-2001. 2008. Trans. Iain Galbraith. Hamish Hamilton. London: Penguin, 2011.

Maud Cahill of Jason Books in central Auckland sends out regular bulletins on what she has in stock. I was therefore able to get down on this new Sebald book before someone else snapped it up. I've read almost all of his work that has so far appeared in translation, I think: the four major prose works, the two posthumous books of essays, the long poem After Nature (1988), so it's great to have this one as well.

He was such a gloomy, introspective character that I must confess I've always feared that his death was not altogether an accident. I'm glad to hear that this is quite erroneous, though. This is what Wikipedia has to say on the subject:

Sebald died in a car crash near Norwich in December [14] 2001. The coroner's report, released some six months later, stated that Sebald had suffered an aneurysm and had died of this condition before his car swerved across the road and collided with an on-coming lorry. He was driving with his daughter Anna, who survived the crash.

Quotes:

'To perceive the aura of an object we look at,' wrote Walter Benjamin, referring more to works of art than to landscapes, 'means to invest it with the ability to look at us in return.' [Iain Galbraith, 'Introduction,' pp.xi-xxiii {p.xxii}. - referencing the essay "Some Motifs in Baudelaire" (1939)]

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W. G. Sebald

Winfried Georg Maximilian Sebald
(1944-2001)

1. After Nature. 1988. Trans. Michael Hamburger. 2002. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2003.


2. Vertigo. 1990. Trans. Michael Hulse. London: Harvill Press, 1999.


3. The Emigrants. 1993. Trans. Michael Hulse. 1996. London: Vintage, 2002.


4. The Rings of Saturn. 1995. Trans. Michael Hulse. 1998. London: Vintage, 2002.


5. A Place in the Country: On Gottfried Keller, Johann Peter Hebel, Robert Walser and Others. 1998. Trans. Jo Catling. 2013. London: Penguin, 2014.


6. On the Natural History of Destruction: With Essays on Alfred Andersch, Jean Améry and Peter Weiss. 1999. Trans. Anthea Bell. 2003. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2004.


7. Austerlitz. 2001. Trans. Anthea Bell. 2001. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2002.


8. Campo Santo. Ed. Sven Meyer. 2003. Trans. Anthea Bell. 2005. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2006.


9. [with Jan Peter Tripp]. Unrecounted: 33 Texts and 33 Etchings. 2003. Trans. Michael Hamburger. Hamish Hamilton. London: Penguin, 2004.


10. Across the Land and the Water: Selected Poems, 1964-2001. 2008. Trans. Iain Galbraith. Hamish Hamilton. London: Penguin, 2011.

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• category - Germanic Literature: Prose

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