A Horse Walks Into a Bar

Zusatztext 47508188 Informationen zum Autor DAVID GROSSMAN  was born in Jerusalem. He is the author of numerous works of fiction! nonfiction! and children's literature. His work has appeared in The New Yorker and has been translated into more than forty languages. He is the recipient of many prizes! including the French Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres! the Buxtehuder Bulle in Germany! Rome's Premio per la Pace e l'Azione Umanitaria! the Premio Ischia--international award for journalism! Israel's Emet Prize! and the Albatross Prize given by the Günter Grass Foundation. JESSICA COHEN  was born in England! raised in Israel! and now lives in the United States. She has translated contemporary Israeli fiction! nonfiction and other creative works! including David Grossman's To the End of the Land . Klappentext **WINNER OF THE 2017 MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE** The award-winning and internationally acclaimed author of the To the End of the Land now gives us a searing short novel about the life of a stand-up comic! as revealed in the course of one evening's performance. In the dance between comic and audience! with barbs flying back and forth! a deeper story begins to take shape-one that will alter the lives of many of those in attendance. In a little dive in a small Israeli city! Dov Greenstein! a comedian a bit past his prime! is doing a night of stand-up. In the audience is a district court justice! Avishai Lazar! whom Dov knew as a boy! along with a few others who remember Dov as an awkward! scrawny kid who walked on his hands to confound the neighborhood bullies. Gradually! as it teeters between hilarity and hysteria! Dov's patter becomes a kind of memoir! taking us back into the terrors of his childhood: we meet his beautiful flower of a mother! a Holocaust survivor in need of constant monitoring! and his punishing father! a striver who had little understanding of his creative son. Finally! recalling his week at a military camp for youth-where Lazar witnessed what would become the central event of Dov's childhood-Dov describes the indescribable while Lazar wrestles with his own part in the comedian's story of loss and survival. Continuing his investigations into how people confront life's capricious battering! and how art may blossom from it! Grossman delivers a stunning performance in this memorable one-night engagement (jokes in questionable taste included). Good evening! good evening! Good evening to the majestic city of Ceasariyaaaaaah!”   The stage is empty. The thundering shout echoes from the wings. The audience slowly quiets down and grins expectantly. A short, slight, bespectacled man lurches onto the stage from a side door as if he’d been kicked through it. He takes a few faltering steps, trips, brakes himself on the wood floor with both hands, then sharply juts his rear end straight up. Scattered laughter and applause from the audience. People are still filing into the club, chatting loudly. “Ladies and gentlemen!” announces a tight--lipped man standing at the lighting console. “Put your hands together for Dovaleh G!” The man onstage still crouches like a monkey, his big glasses askew on his nose. He slowly turns to face the room and scans it with a long, unblinking look.   “Oh, wait a minute,” he grumbles, “this isn’t Caesarea, is it?” Sounds of laughter. He slowly straightens up and dusts his hands off. “Looks like my agent fucked me again.” A few audience members call out, and he stares at them in horror: “Say what? Come again? You, table seven, yeah, with the new lips—-they look great, by the way.” The woman giggles and covers her mouth with one hand. The performer stands at the edge of the stage, swaying back and forth slightly. “Get serious now, honey, did you really say Netanya ?” His eyes widen, almost filling the lenses of his glasses: “Let me get this straight. A...

Product details

• Authors: Jessica Cohen, David Grossman
• Assisted by: Jessica Cohen (Translation)
• Publisher: Knopf
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 28.02.2017
• EAN: 9780451493972
• ISBN: 978-0-451-49397-2
• No. of pages: 208
• Dimensions: 148 mm x 216 mm x 25 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; Israelische SchriftstellerInnen: Werke (div.)