''Devotion'' () is a 1977 novella by the German writer
Botho Strauß
Botho Strauß (; born 2 December 1944) is a German playwright, novelist and essayist.
Biography
Botho Strauß's father was a chemist. After finishing his secondary education, Strauß studied German, History of the Theatre and Sociology in Col ...
. It tells the story of a Berlin bookseller in his early 30s who is abandoned by his girlfriend, isolates himself and begins to write literature, convinced that the girlfriend will return.
Publication
The book was published by
Carl Hanser Verlag
The Carl Hanser Verlag was founded in 1928 by Carl Hanser in Munich and is one of the few medium-sized publishing companies in the German-speaking area still owned by the founding family.
History
From the very beginning, the publishing house h ...
in 1977. It appeared in English in 1979, translated by Sophie Wilkins and published by
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG) is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger Williams Straus Jr. and John C. Farrar. FSG is known for publishing literary books, and its authors have won numerous awards, including Pulitzer ...
.
Northwestern University Press
Northwestern University Press is an American publishing house affiliated with Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. It publishes 70 new titles each year in the areas of continental philosophy, poetry, Slavic and German literary criticism ...
released a new edition in 1995 as part of its Hydra Books series.
Reception
Lore Dickstein of the ''
Saturday Review'' described the book as "a brilliant, hard-edged analysis of the act of writing". Dickstein wrote, "The spare abstract quality of Strauss's language is the reflection of his subject: the isolation of the self/artist in a world where no one really listens. While some readers will prefer the more richly furnished world of a novelist like
V.S. Naipaul
Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (; 17 August 1932 – 11 August 2018) was a Trinidadian-born British writer of works of fiction and nonfiction in English. He is known for his comic early novels set in Trinidad, his bleaker novels of alienati ...
, this book by Botho Strauss is like a sculpture by
Giacometti
Alberto Giacometti (, , ; 10 October 1901 – 11 January 1966) was a Swiss sculptor, painter, Drafter, draftsman and Printmaking, printmaker. Beginning in 1922, he lived and worked mainly in Paris but regularly visited his hometown Borgonovo, ...
—clean, pared-down, and without a shred of unnecessary flesh."
References
Further reading
*
External links
German publicity page{{in lang, de
American publicity page
1977 German novels
German novellas
German-language novels
Works by Botho Strauß