- Publisher: Yale University Press
- Available in: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle, Audiobook
- ISBN: 9780300220643
- Published: May 25, 2021
The first English-language biography of one of the great literary talents of the twentieth century
Finalist – National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography
Masterful. . . . This balanced and meticulous account shines a bright light on a misunderstood and influential writer.” —Publishers Weekly
“In this nuanced, astute, and revelatory biography, Susan Bernofsky gives us Walser the man—mysterious, intellectually adventuresome, humble, an artist of the first order. So, too, is Bernofsky’s exceptional book: of the first order.” —Hilton Als
“Bernofsky takes us into the heart of an artist’s life/work struggles, brilliantly illuminating Walser’s exquisite sensibility and uncompromising radical innovations, while deftly tracking how his life gradually came apart at the seams. A tragic and intimate portrait.” —Amy Sillman
“Susan Bernofsky’s deep and decades-long involvement with Robert Walser’s work has resulted in a meticulously researched, lively narrative and astute critical study of this complex and appealing writer. Clairvoyant of the Small is one of the best biographies I’ve read in a long time.” —Lydia Davis
“No one else on earth could have written of the genius and mystique of Walser with such lyricism and exactitude.” —Maira Kalman
“A magnificent work of scholarship and among the finest literary biographies I’ve ever read — gorgeously written, immensely well researched, and addictively readable.” —Samuel Frederick
“Absolutely an incomparable biography—Bernofsky liberates the great twentieth-century writer from the asylum—revealing the understated grandeur of his literature of walking, vocabulary of a painted world, and subtle grammar of human foibles.” —Josiah McElheny
“Robert Walser is the perfect pathetic poet: pithy, awkward, drinks too much, sibling rivalrous, ambitious, broke, and mentally ill. Was he proto queer or trans, this red headed writer who next to Gertrude Stein might be the most influential writer of our moment? Riveting and heart-breaking, this biography kept me drunk for days.” —Eileen Myles
“Written with true love, Susan Bernofsky’s meticulously investigated book is a sensitive and subtle analysis of Robert Walser’s radical life and work, casting a blazing light on this giant of literature.” —Thomas Hirschhorn