The microscripts
By: Robert Walser ; translated from the German and with an introduction by Susan Bernofsky ; with an afterword by Walter Benjamin
Contributors: Benjamin, Walter; Bernofsky, Susan
Publisher: New Directions Books; Christine Burgin Books
Published: 2012
Place of publication: New York, NY
Language: eng; ger
Number of pages: 160
ISBN-13: 9780811220330
Copyright date: 1985
Subjects: German literature; History and criticism
Work titles: Aus dem Bleistiftgebiet
Description: Robert Walser wrote many of his manuscripts in a highly enigmatic, reduced form. These narrow strips of paper, covered with tiny antlike pencil markings a millimeter high, came to light only after the author's death in 1956. At first misconstrued as secret code, the microscripts were eventually found to be a form of German script so radically miniaturized that an entire story might fit on the back of a business card.

Selected from the six-volume German original, these twenty-five short pieces address schnapps, rotten husbands, small-town life, elegant jaunts, the radio, swine (and how none of us can deny being one), jealousy, and marriage proposals. This is the first English translation of Walser's work to be accompanied by facsimiles of the original microscripts and the original German texts.
Notes: "His translation of a selection of Micrsoscripts from Robert Walser's Aus dem Bleistiftgebiet is published by arrangement with Suhrkamp Verlag."