The Walk

A pseudo-biographical "stroll" through town and countryside rife with philosophical musings, The Walk has been hailed as the masterpiece of Walser's short prose. Walking features heavily in his writing, but nowhere else is it as elegantly considered. Without walking, "I would be dead," Walser explains, "and my profession, which I love passionately, would be destroyed. Because it is on walks that the lore of nature and the lore of the country are revealed, charming and graceful, to the sense and eyes of the observant walker." The Walk was the first piece of Walser's work to appear in English, and the only one translated before his death. However, Walser heavily revised his most famous novella, altering nearly every sentence, rendering the baroque tone of his tale into something more spare. An introduction by translator Susan Bernofsky explains the history of The Walk, and the differences between its two versions.

About the author

Robert Walser (1878-1956) was born in Switzerland. He left school at fourteen and led a wandering and precarious existence working as a bank clerk, a butler in a castle, and an inventor's assistant while producing essays, stories, and novels. In 1933 he abandoned writing and entered a sanatorium-where he remained for the rest of his life. "I am not here to write," Walser said, "but to be mad."

Product details

• Authors: Susan Bernofsky, Robert Walser
• Assisted by: Susan Bernofsky (Translation), Christopher Middleton (Translation)
• Publisher: New Directions
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 01.06.2012
• EAN: 9780811219921
• ISBN: 978-0-8112-1992-1
• No. of pages: 89
• Dimensions: 115 mm x 180 mm x 10 mm
• Series: New Directions Pearls; New Directions Pearls
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies