Essays
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Essays
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See moreA 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.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780241985458
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 02 July 2026
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Penguin Books Ltd
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 33.0mm
Width: 132.0mm
Height: 198.0mm
Weight: 694g
Pages: 528
About the Author
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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