An Evocation Of Matthias Stimmberg

An Evocation of Matthias Stimmberg

A miniature Borgesian portrait in misanthropy In a sequence of anecdotes imbued with haughty melancholy and nihilistic irony, Alain-Paul Mallard assembles a puzzle of an Austrian writer who despises both the world he lives in and the work he himself has produced, whose fragmented life crosses paths with fictional and nonfictional protagonists from Hans Magnus Enzensberger to Paul Celan, and whose concise first-person reflections describe a complicated and sympathetic monster. A masterpiece of the miniature in the tradition of Robert Walser and Fleur Jaeggy, and a tribute to the legacy of Thomas Bernhard, Mallard's "imaginary life" offers a celebration of sterility and silence in its appropriately distilled essence. Writer and filmmaker Alain-Paul Mallardwas born in 1970 and raised in Mexico City. He studied Hispanic literature in his native city, and then studied European intellectual history in Toronto. Tempted by silence, he is the author of a short, highly concentrated body of work. His films include L'origine de la tendresse, Évidencesand L'adoption.

Evocation de Matthias Stimmberg

En quelques nouvelles brèves, ce livre fait le portrait d'un poète autrichien faussement nihiliste, sûrement misanthrope, dont la culture est marquée par le souvenir de l'indicible. On reconnaîtra là un art tout borgésien de la miniature qui en dit long, très long, sur le monde. mais si le pari de Borges est relevé, le livre va plus loin encore, faisant voltiger en 10 fragments le puzzle de la mémoire la plus lourde, celle du XXe siècle. A.P.M. déploie avec finesse l'art, si classique et si contemporain, de dire le moins pour le plus.

Evocación de Matthias Stimmberg