A Tribute to Robert Walser

May 3, 2008 | The Morgan Library & Museum | New York City

Cosponsored by New Directions, The New York Review of Books, and The Morgan Library & Museum

With Susan Bernofsky, Deborah Eisenberg, Jeffrey Eugenides, Wayne Koestenbaum, and Michael Krüger

Through readings and discussion, poets and writers pay tribute to the strange genius of Robert Walser (1878–1956), the Swiss novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and poet, whose works include Jakob von Gunten, The Assistant, and Selected Stories. Pulitzer Prize–winning Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex, The Virgin Suicides), Deborah Eisenberg (Twilight of the Superheroes), Michael Krüger (The Executor), and poet and novelist Wayne Koestenbaum (Best-Selling Jewish Porn Films and The Milk of Inquiry) will be joined by translator Susan Bernofsky.

PHOTO GALLERY: Flickr photostream

LISTEN
• Entire event

• Michael Kruger discusses Robert Walser
• Deborah Eisenberg reads from Jakob Von Gunten
• Susan Bernofsky reads from The Assistant and The Tanners
• Jeffrey Eugenides reads from “Trousers”
• Wayne Koestenbaum reads from “The Job Application;” “Dostoevsky’s Idiot;” and “The Robber”
• Audience Q&A

From the PEN Blogs

• Gini Alhadeff
The Swiss writer Robert Walser wanted nothing so much as to be a “zero” and failed miserably…[More]