Description

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Lydia Davis is one of our most original and influential writers. She has been called “an American virtuoso of the short story form” (Salon) and “one of the quiet giants . . . of American fiction” (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Now, for the first time, Davis’s short stories will be collected in one volume, from the groundbreaking Break It Down (1986) to the 2007 National Book Award nominee Varieties of Disturbance.

The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis is an event in American letters.

Lydia Davis is the author of one novel and seven story collections, the most recent of which was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government for her fiction and her translations of modern writers including Maurice Blanchot, Michel Leiris, and Marcel Proust. Lydia Davis is one of our most original and influential writers, a storyteller celebrated for her inventiveness, and her ability to capture the mind in overdrive. She has been called "an American virtuoso of the short story form" (Salon) and "one of the quiet giants . . . of American fiction" (Los Angeles Times Book Review). This volume contains all her stories to date, from the acclaimed Break It Down to the 2007 National book Award finalist Varieties of Disturbance.

About the Author

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Lydia Davis is the author of one novel and seven story collections, the most recent of which was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award. She is the acclaimed translator of a new edition of Swann’s Way and is at work on a new translation of Madame Bovary.

Praise for The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis…

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“Among the true originals of contemporary American short fiction.” —San Francisco Chronicle  “Davis is a magician of self-consciousness. Few writers now working make the words on the page matter more.”  —JONATHAN FRANZEN

“All who know [Davis’s] work probably remember their first time reading it . . . Blows the roof off of so many of our assumptions about what constitutes short fiction.” —DAVE EGGERS, McSweeney’s

“Sharp, deft, ironic, understated, and consistently surprising.” —JOYCE CAROL OATES

“The best prose stylist in America.” —RICK MOODY