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Devotion (novella)

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Devotion
First edition
AuthorBotho Strauß
Original titleDie Widmung
TranslatorSophie Wilkins
LanguageGerman
PublisherCarl Hanser Verlag
Publication date
1977
Publication placeWest Germany
Published in English
1979
Pages144
ISBN978-3-446-12415-8

Devotion (German: Die Widmung) is a 1977 novella by the German writer Botho Strauß. 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

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The book was published by Carl Hanser Verlag in 1977. It appeared in English in 1979, translated by Sophie Wilkins and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.[1] Northwestern University Press released a new edition in 1995 as part of its Hydra Books series.[2]

Reception

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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, this book by Botho Strauss is like a sculpture by Giacometti—clean, pared-down, and without a shred of unnecessary flesh."[3]

References

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  1. ^ Devotion (Book, 1979). OCLC 4775574. Retrieved 2016-11-29 – via WorldCat.
  2. ^ Devotion (Book, 1995). OCLC 722859177. Retrieved 2016-11-29 – via WorldCat.
  3. ^ Dickstein, Lore. "Books in Brief". Saturday Review. p. 50. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)

Further reading

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