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Love Today

Stories

Translated by Anthea Bell

About The Book

Now in paperback, the extraordinary English language debut from the critically acclaimed writer Maxim Biller, whose “gossamer fictions may remind you of narrative poems in their ability to simultaneously elude and haunt you” (Francine Prose, O, The Oprah Magazine).

• A writer on the verge of international acclaim: maxim Biller’s work received raves when it was published in The New Yorker in the summer of 2007, and he’s already been published in Dutch, Danish, French, Greek, and Czech. German cultural institutions based in the u.S., such as the Goethe House, are enthusiastically helping to promote Biller’s work in english. In addition, Love Today is translated by Anthea Bell, the award-winning German-language translator.

• Twenty-seven exquisite vignettes: Biller depicts the complexities of romantic relationships in the twenty-first century perfectly—the frustration, longing, and loneliness—in these skillfully crafted stories, designed to build upon each other. It’s as if the reader were standing in the courtyard of an apartment building, observing the lives of others, listening to their conversations, experiencing their intimacy.

• For fans of Miranda July, Nathan Englander, and Jonathan Safran Foer: Biller’s writing is sensitive, observant, and honest. The end result is both romantically voyeuristic and deeply moving—Biller is a writer poised for international stardom.

About The Author

Photo Credit:

Maxim Biller was born in Prague in 1960, and emigrated with his family to Germany in 1970. He is the author of three previous story collections and two novels, Esra and The Daughter. In 1999 he received the Theodor-Wolff-Preis, one of the highest awards for journalists in Germany. Two of his short stories have appeared in The New Yorker. Maxim Biller lives in Berlin.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster (June 9, 2009)
  • Length: 224 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781416572664

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Raves and Reviews

"The course of true love is bumpy indeed for the couples in Love Today (Simon & Schuster), Maxim Biller's first story collection to be translated into English. Set mainly in Germany and the Czech Republic, with side trips to Tel Aviv, France, and New York, these wry, elliptical narratives chart the passions and the discontents of men and women who vanish from each other's lives and reappear without notice, and whom Biller often catches at the moment of confronting the mystery of what keeps them together, or what has driven them apart. In "Seven Attempts at Loving," after a long separation childhood sweethearts meet by accident at a tram stop in Prague; in "Baghdad at Seven-Thirty," a man and his much younger girlfriend watch war news coverage in a bar, straining for a glimpse of the man's American soldier son, about to be deployed to Kuwait; and in "The Architect," an artist named Splash and his Lebanese lover distract themselves from their problems by spying on a neighbor. Deceptively transparent, Biller's brief, gossamer fictions may remind you of narrative poems in their ability to simultaneously elude and haunt you." -- Francine Prose, O Magazine

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