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Devotion (novella)
View on WikipediaDevotion (German: Die Widmung) is a 1977 novella by the German writer Botho Strauß. It tells the story of a Berlin bookseller in his early 30s who is abandoned by his girlfriend, isolates himself and begins to write literature, convinced that the girlfriend will return.
Key Information
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Publication
[edit]The book was published by Carl Hanser Verlag in 1977. It appeared in English in 1979, translated by Sophie Wilkins and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.[1] Northwestern University Press released a new edition in 1995 as part of its Hydra Books series.[2]
Reception
[edit]Lore Dickstein of the Saturday Review described the book as "a brilliant, hard-edged analysis of the act of writing". Dickstein wrote, "The spare abstract quality of Strauss's language is the reflection of his subject: the isolation of the self/artist in a world where no one really listens. While some readers will prefer the more richly furnished world of a novelist like V.S. Naipaul, this book by Botho Strauss is like a sculpture by Giacometti—clean, pared-down, and without a shred of unnecessary flesh."[3]
References
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- Limmer, Wolfgang (1977-11-28). "Flitterwochen einer Trennung". Der Spiegel (in German).
External links
[edit]- German publicity page (in German)
- American publicity page Archived 2016-11-29 at the Wayback Machine