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Essays Two

Essays Two

Summary

Lydia Davis returns with a timeless collection of essays on literature and language.

'Precise, concentrated, lyrical. No one writes like Lydia Davis, and everyone should read her' Hanif Kureishi

'A writer as mighty as Kafka, as subtle as Flaubert, and as epoch-making, in her own way, as Proust' Ali Smith

Lydia Davis gathered a selection of her non-fiction writing for the first time in 2019 with Essays. Now, she continues the project with Essays Two, focusing on the art of translation, the learning of foreign languages through reading, and her experience of translating, amongst others, Flaubert and Proust, about whom she writes with an unmatched understanding of the nuances of their styles.

Every essay in this book is a revelation.

Reviews

  • 'Precise, concentrated, lyrical. No one writes like Lydia Davis, and everyone should read her'
    Hanif Kureishi

About the author

Lydia Davis

Lydia Davis is the author of Collected Stories, one novel and six short story collections, the most recent of which was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government for her fiction and her translations of modern writers, including Gustave Flaubert and Marcel Proust. She won the Man Booker International Prize in 2013.
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