{"product_id":"jakob-von-gunten-9780940322219","title":"Jakob Von Gunten","description":"The Swiss writer Robert Walser is one of the quiet geniuses of twentieth-century literature. Largely self-taught and altogether indifferent to worldly success, Walser wrote a range of short stories, essays, as well as four novels, of which \u003ci\u003eJakob von Gunten\u003c\/i\u003e is widely recognized as the finest. The book is a young man's inquisitive and irreverent account of life in what turns out to be the most uncanny of schools. It is the work of an outsider artist, a writer of uncompromising originality and disconcerting humor, whose beautiful sentences have the simplicity and strangeness of a painting by Henri Rousseau.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRobert Walser (1878-1956) was born into a German speaking family in Biel, Switzerland. He left school at fourteen and led a wandering, precarious existence while writing his poems, novels, and vast numbers of the \"prose pieces\" that became his hallmark. In 1933 he was confined to a sanatorium, which marked the end of his writing career. Among Walser's works available in English are \u003ci\u003eBerlin Stories\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eJakob von Gunten\u003c\/i\u003e (both available as NYRB classics), \u003ci\u003eThirty Poems\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Walk\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Tanners\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMicroscripts\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Assistant\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Robber\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMasquerade and Other Stories\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003cbr\u003eand \u003ci\u003eSpeaking to the Rose: Writings, 1912-1932\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eChristopher Middleton (b. 1926) is a poet, essayist, and translator. He teaches Germanic languages and literature at the University of Texas at Austin and has translated numerous works, including \u003ci\u003eJakob von Gunten\u003c\/i\u003e by Robert Walser.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"New York Review of Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50642344182034,"sku":"9780940322219","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_507f41a0-38dc-45cc-8a34-d0b8d437aae1.jpg?v=1733064851","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/jakob-von-gunten-9780940322219","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}