• Selected Prose of Heinrich von Kleist
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Archipelago Books

Selected Prose of Heinrich von Kleist

Selected Prose of Heinrich von Kleist

by Heinrich von Kleist, translated from the German by Peter Wortsman

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In this extraordinary and unpredictable cross-section of the work of one of the most influential free spirits of German letters, Peter Wortsman captures the breathlessness and power of Heinrich von Kleist’s transcendent prose. From “The Earthquake in Chile,” his damning invective against moral tyranny; to “Michael Kohlhaas,” an exploration of the extreme price of justice; to “The Marquise of O . . . ,” his twist on the mythic triumph-of-love story; to his essay “On the Gradual Formation of Thoughts While Speaking,” which tracks the movements of the unconscious decades before Freud; these tales, essays, and fragments confront the dangers of self-deception and the ultimate impossibility of existence in a world of absolutes.

Additional Book Information

Series: Archipelago Books
ISBN: 9780981955728
Pages: 283
Publication Date:

Praise

Kleist left behind a corpus of works that, while small in quantity, were and still are among the finest German texts.
—Library Journal

Kleist’s narrative language is something completely unique. It is not enough to read it as historical—even in his day nobody wrote as he did. . . . An impetus squeezed out with iron, absolutely un-lyrical detachment brings forth tangled, knotted, overloaded sentences painfully soldered together. . . and driven by a breathless tempo.
—Thomas Mann

This collection of short stories, novellas and literary fragments . . . is impressive not only for its content but for its relevance centuries later. . . . A dark, charming collection of twisted fairy tales for grownups.
—Publishers Weekly

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