W. G. Sebald

The four long narratives in The Emigrants appear at first to be the straightforward biographies of four Germans in exile. Sebald reconstructs the lives of a painter, a doctor, an elementary-school teacher, and Great Uncle Ambrose. Following (literally) in their footsteps, the narrator retraces routes of exile which lead from Lithuania to London, from Munich to Manchester, from the South German provinces to Switzerland, France, New York, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. Along with memories, documents, and diaries of the Holocaust, he collects photographs--the enigmatic snapshots which stud The Emigrants and bring to mind family photo albums. Sebald combines precise documentary with fictional motifs, and as he puts the question to realism, the four stories merge into one unfathomable requiem.

På centralstationen i Antwerpen möter berättarjaget för första gången den gåtfulle Jacques Austerlitz och får den första av många bitar i pusslet som utgör hans livshistoria. Sommaren 1939 skickades den då femårige Austerlitz till England med en av de sista flyktingtransporterna av judiska barn. Han placerades hos kristna fosterföräldrar som teg om hans bakgrund. "Austerlitz" är en roman om rotlöshet och främlingskap, och om det outtröttliga sökandet efter det som gått förlorat. Utgåvan inleds med ett nyskrivet förord av Emi-Simone Zawall.

I Logi på et landsted udforsker W.G. Sebald det moderne menneskes eksistentielle hjemløshed og muligheden for at finde et midlertidigt tilflugtssted i naturen og kunsten. Med sin unikke blanding af essayistisk prosa og biografiske skitser portrætterer Sebald seks forfatteres liv og værker, der har påvirket ham dybt, heriblandt Jean-Jacques Rousseau og Robert Walser. Essayene tager udgangspunkt i de steder og landskaber, der har formet forfatterne og fortsat genlyder i deres værker. Med skarpsindig analyse og poetisk observation undersøger Sebald disse litterære skikkelsers aftryk på verden og på ham selv som læser og forfatter. W.G. Sebald (1944-2001) er forfatter til romanerne Austerlitz og Saturns ringe og blev før sin død betragtet som en mulig kandidat til Nobelprisen i litteratur.

From the renowned author of Austerlitz (named a Top 10 Book of the 21st Century by the New York Times) comes the first English translation of his extraordinary essays on the Austrian writers who shaped his life and work. Silent Catastrophes brings together the two books W.G. Sebald wrote on the Austrian writers who meant so much to him: The Description of Misfortune and Strange Homeland, published in Austria in 1985 and 1991. As a German in self-chosen exile from his country of birth, Sebald found a particular affinity with these writers from a neighboring nation. The traumatic evolution of Austria from vast empire to diminutive Alpine republic, followed by its annexation by Nazi Germany, meant that concepts such as "home/land," "borderland" and "exile" occupy a prominent role in its literature, just as they would in Sebald's own. Through a series of remarkable close readings of texts by Bernhard, Stifter, Kafka, Handke, Roth, and more, Sebald charts both the pathologies which so often drove their work and the seismic historical forces which shaped them. This sequence of essays will be a revelation to Sebald's English-language readers, tracing as they do so many of the themes which animate his own literary writings, to which these essays form a kind of prelude. This is an essential new edition from "a writer whose life and work has become a wonderful vindication of literary culture in all its subtle and entrancing complexity" (The Guardian).

‘We have become suspicious, rightly, of claims for literary greatness, but in Sebald’s case the claim was triumphantly justified. He was, he is, the real thing’ John Banville, GuardianFrom acclaimed critic, novelist and academic W. G. Sebald, author of Austerlitz and The Rings of Saturn, a collection of essay on the Austrian writers who meant so much to him - appearing for the first time in EnglishAs a German in self-chosen exile from his country of birth, Sebald found a particular affinity with these writers from a neighbouring nation. The traumatic evolution of Austria from vast empire to diminutive Alpine republic, followed by its annexation by Germany, meant that concepts such as ‘home/land’, ‘borderland’ and ‘exile’ occupy a prominent role in its literature, just as they would in Sebald’s own.Through a series of remarkable close readings of texts by Bernhard, Stifter, Kafka, Handke, Roth and more, Sebald charts both the pathologies which so often drove their work and the seismic historical forces which shaped them. This sequence of essays will be a revelation to Sebald’s English-language readers, tracing as they do so many of the themes which animate his own literary writings, to which these essays form a kind of prelude.'A writer whose life and work has become a wonderful vindication of literary culture in all its subtle and entrancing complexity' Guardian‘Sebald was probably the greatest intellect and voice of the late twentieth century’ Antony Beevor, The Times

I augusti månad, under inflytande av melankolins himlakroppar Sirius och Saturnus, ger sig jaget i Saturnus ringar av på en fotvandring genom Suffolk i östra England. W.G. Sebalds sällsamma reseberättelse följer spåren av världens förfall och förstörelse, ett sökande som ett år senare leder till att jagberättaren blir inlagd på sjukhuset i Norwich. Nyutgåvan introduceras av Sebaldsällskapets sekreterare Mats Almegård.

Undervejs på den 2. Kamtjatka-ekspedition erfarer den tyske opdagelsesrejsende Georg Wilhelm Steller, hvor ubegribeligt smuk naturen er, når tågen endelig er lettet, og han fra sit skib kan se Alaskas violette bjergtoppe mod den natsorte himmel. Han mærker også, hvor grusom og ødelæggende den kan være, efter i månedsvis at have været offer for en orkan på Beringhavet.Denne dobbelthed går igen i W.G. Sebalds digtsamling, hvor naturen i og omkring mennesket foldes ud gennem tre poetiske fortællinger om tre mænd fra hver deres tidsalder: Georg Wilhelm Steller, renæssancemaleren Matthias Grünewald og Sebald selv, der kommer til verden under Anden Verdenskrigs ragnarok. Efter naturen er Sebalds debut, men fremstår som en moden digters værk, der gennem et fabulerende og melankolsk temperament forener dokumentarisk interesse med forjættende og rædselsvækkende visioner af en verden efter naturen. W.G. Sebald (1944-2001) er forfatter til romanerne Austerlitz og Saturns ringe og blev før sin død betragtet som en mulig kandidat til Nobelprisen i litteratur.

"Utvandrade" följer spåren efter fyra män i exil, fyra livsöden under 1900-talet som förenas av den judiska erfarenheten, av hemlöshet och hemlängtan. Den som försöker fly det förflutna finner sig i W. G. Sebalds vindlande dokumentärroman i stället tvungen att fortsätta minnas – ”tills ens hjärta brister”. Nyutgåvan inleds med ett förord skrivet av Sebaldsällskapets ordförande Astrid Seeberger.

The first-ever volume of the photographs of German writer W.G. Sebald, exquisitely designed to shed new light on his creative process, as it chronicles the images and encounters that shaped his writing life. Shadows of Reality presents a unique, fully illustrated catalogue of W.G. Sebald's photographs- an extraordinary combination of film negatives, prints, and slides from the University of East Anglia's photographic collection, the Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach, and the Sebald Estate. Complementing the exhibition Lines of Sight- W.G. Sebald's East Anglia and edited by literary scholar Clive Scott and photography curator Nick Warr, this wonderfully comprehensive book covers the multiple photographic facets of Sebald's published work and includes a substantial amount of material that has not been made public before. Introduced by Nick Warr, who offers an intriguing overview of the author's critical relationship to photography, Shadows of Reality also includes an illuminating interview with Michael Brandon-Jones, the photographer who collaborated with Sebald on all of his publications. The book features a collection of extracts-principally on photography-from interviews with Sebald himself, bequeathed to the archive of recordings held at the University of East Anglia by his close friend Gordon Turner, who also provides a memoir. Accompanying these are inspired essays by Clive Scott and Angela Breidbach on Sebald's writing-with-photographs and the complex and mercurial interactions of those photographs with narrative design. A deeply important collection for anyone interested in Sebald's creative processes or the ways in which photography might serve fiction, Shadows of Reality is an inexhaustible treasure trove of new discoveries and revelations about the cherished international author.

Nyt omslag i seriedesign Den tysk-engelske forfatter W.G. Sebald er en samler med et arkiv af livsberetninger. Hans romaner er en slags erindringens og mindernes arkæologi. De er båret af viljen til at komme glemslen og fortrængningen af fortiden til livs – og til at generobre og genskabe det tabte. I den henseende blev Austerlitz – Sebalds sidste roman – det absolutte højdepunkt. På jernbanestationen i Antwerpen står en mand. Ung, lyshåret, med kraftige vandrestøvler, blå arbejdsbukser og en gammel rygsæk. Austerlitz hedder han; engelsk og arkitekturhistoriker af profession. Skridt for skridt afdækkes denne melankolske omrejsendes livshistorie. Austerlitz, der har levet i England i mange år, er ikke englænder. Som jødisk flygtningebarn kom han i 1940’erne fra Prag til Wales. Her vokser han som enebarn op i en calvinistisk præstefamilie i en lille landsby uden at vide, hvem han er, og uden at kende til sine forældres endeligt i henholdsvis Theresienstadt og det besatte Frankrig. Austerlitz, der er oversat af Niels Brunse i 2003, er en mesterlig fortælling om en mand, der forsøger at finde sig selv og komme til bunds i sin egen historie. Det blev W.G. Sebalds ((1944-2001) sidste roman, da han døde i en bilulykke samme år, som Austerlitz udkom. Bogen udkommer i Gyldendal Lunar, der er en serie for litteraturhistoriens mørke klassikere. Det er værker, der sprænger normer og former, fra alle tider og alle dele af verden. Gyldendal Lunar er serien for de skæve, de dystre, de vilde, de dunkle og grænsebrydende værker. Gyldendal Lunar er undergrundsværker, der lyser op i mørket.

En berättare, plågad av oro och melankoli, reser genom Österrike och Italien, och slutligen till sitt barndomshem i Bayern, men också tillbaka i historien, i Stendhals och Kafkas fotspår. ”Svindel. Känslor” är en hisnande balansakt i fyra avdelningar och den första av W. G. Sebalds fyra enastående essäromaner som nu utges på nytt. Boken inleds med ett nyskrivet förord av Steve Sem-Sandberg.

A powerful work by the heralded writer, this collection is a touchstone event in German literature of the post-war era. On April 8, 1945, several American bomber squadrons were informed that their German targets were temporarily unavailable due to cloud cover. As it was too late to turn back, the assembled ordnance of more than two hundred bombers was diverted to nearby Halberstadt. A mid-sized cathedral town of no particular industrial or strategic importance, Halberstadt was almost totally destroyed, and a then-thirteen-year-old Alexander Kluge watched his town burn to the ground. Incorporating photographs, diagrams, and drawings, Kluge captures the overwhelming rapidity and totality of the organized destruction of his town from numerous perspectives, bringing to life both the strategy from above and the futility of the response on the ground. Originally published in German in 1977, this exquisite report, fragmentary and unfinished, is one of Kluge’s most personal works and one of the best examples of his literary technique. The English edition of Air Rair includes additional new stories by the author and features an appreciation of the work by W. G. Sebald. “More than a few of Kluge’s many books are essential, brilliant achievements. None are without great interest.”—Susan Sontag

Kari Aronpuron suomennoksessa saksalaisen W. G. Sebaldin (1944-2001) tyrmäävän hyvä esikoisteos herää uuteen kukoistukseen. Käsikirjoituksia elämän lopulla, kirjoitettu Jäämeren saarella raapivalla hanhensulalla ja sappisella musteella, luettelo kahdestasadastayhdestätoista eri kasvista, kertomuksia valkoisista korpeista, harvinaisista merimetsoista ja merilehmistä, järjestettyinä paikoilleen loputtoman registratuuran tomuun. ”Vieläkö kirjallinen suuruus on mahdollista? Harvoihin vastauksiin kuuluu Sebaldin tuotanto.”Susan Sontag 2000

När den tyskfödde författaren W. G. Sebald 2001 dog i Norfolk, England, lämnade han efter sig ett av efterkrigstidens märkvärdigaste författarskap. Pa distans från den tyska kulturen beskrev han ba de dess historia och den europeiska kulturens detaljer med skarp och inkännande blick. Historia och nutid smälter samman i ett enormt minnesarbete. Campo Santo (som betyder kyrkogård) a r Sebalds sista stora prosaverk.

Vintage Voyages: A world of journeys, from the tallest mountains to the depths of the mindWhat begins as the record of a journey on foot through coastal East Anglia becomes the great, constellated story of people and cultures past and present: of Chateaubriand, Thomas Browne, Swinburne and Conrad, of fishing fleets, skulls and silkworms.

Austerlitz is W. G. Sebald's haunting novel of post-war Europe.In 1939, five-year-old Jacques Austerlitz is sent to England on a Kindertransport and placed with foster parents. This childless couple promptly erase from the boy all knowledge of his identity and he grows up ignorant of his past. Later in life, after a career as an architectural historian, Austerlitz - having avoided all clues that might point to his origin - finds the past returning to haunt him and he is forced to explore what happened fifty years before. Austerlitz is W.G. Sebald's melancholic masterpiece.'Mesmeric, haunting and heartbreakingly tragic. Simply no other writer is writing or thinking on the same level as Sebald' Eileen Battersby, Irish Times'Greatness in literature is still possible' John Banville, Irish Times, Books of the Year'A work of obvious genius' Literary Review'A fusion of the mystical and the solid ... His art is a form of justice - there can be, I think, no higher aim' Evening Standard'Spellbindingly accomplished; a work of art' The Times Literary Supplement 'I have never read a book that provides such a powerful account of the devastation wrought by the dispersal of the Jews from Prague and their treatment by the Nazis' Observer'A great book by a great writer' Boyd Tonkin, IndependentW . G. Sebald was born in Wertach im Allgäu, Germany, in 1944 and died in December 2001. He studied German language and literature in Freiburg, Switzerland and Manchester. In 1996 he took up a position as an assistant lecturer at the University of Manchester and settled permanently in England in 1970. He was Professor of European Literature at the University of East Anglia and is the author of The Emigrants, The Rings of Saturn, Vertigo, Austerlitz, After Nature, On the Natural History of Destruction, Campo Santo, Unrecounted, A Place in the Country. His selected poetry is published in a volume called Across the Land and the Water.

Migranternes historie er den moderne verdens historie, synes Sebald at sige. Menneskeliv, der har været stabile og ensartede i århundreder, rives op med rode og plantes om. I de fire lange fortællinger i De udvandrede fortæller han den historie ved at fortælle de individuelle historier, f.eks. om jøden, der nåede at forlade Tyskland i tide, men altid bar sin fortid med sig. W.G. Sebald (1944-2001) blev verdensberømt med romanen Austerlitz, der udkom kort før hans død. De udvandrede hører til blandt hans tidligere bøger, men fortælleformen og mange temaer går igen.