ROBERT WALSER / Microscripts

Robert Walser
Microscripts  2012
Softcover, 162 pages
22 x 15cm
New Directions / Christine Burgin 

Translated from German by Susan Bernofsky, with a contribution by Walter Benjamin.

Robert Walser (1878-1956) wrote many of his manuscripts in a highly enigmatic, shrunken-down form. These narrow strips of paper, covered with tiny ant-like pencil markings a millimetre high, came to light only after the author’s death in 1956.

At first considered random restless pencil markings or a secret code, the microscripts were in time discovered to be a radically miniaturised form of antique German script: a whole story was deciphered on the back of a business card.

These twenty-five short pieces address schnapps, rotten husbands, small town life, elegant jaunts, the radio, swine, jealousy, and marriage proposals.

Published by New Directions in collaboration with the legendary Christine Burgin Gallery.