The last wolf = El ultimo lobo

László Krasznahorkai

Book - 2016

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FICTION/Krasznah Laszlo
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Published
New York : New Directions Publishing Corporation 2016.
Language
English
Hungarian
Main Author
László Krasznahorkai (author)
Other Authors
George Szirtes, 1948- (translator), John Batki (-)
Item Description
"A New Directions Book"
"Originally published in Hungarian as Az utolsó farkas (The Last Wolf, originally published 2009), and Herman, a vadr, A mesterségnek vége (Herman, originally published 1986)"--Title page verso.
Physical Description
128 pages ; 19 cm
ISBN
9780811226080
Contents unavailable.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

The Last Wolf" and "Herman," two thematically linked novellas from the Man Booker International Prize-winning Hungarian writer Krasznahorkai, may be far shorter than his past masterworks Sátántangó and The Melancholy of Resistance, but they provide a showcase for the density and lucidity that made those works great. "The Last Wolf" is the weightier of the two, concerning a washed-up professor who recounts, in one long sentence addressed to a barman, the story of how, in a case of mistaken identity, he was invited to the Spanish region of Extramadura and offered his choice of subjects to write about by the foundation paying for the trip. He chooses to report on the story of the area's last wolf pack and unearths a saga of extinction, told by a succession of hunters and wardens, that is by turns comic, absurd, tragic, and harrowingly beautiful. "Herman" is a two-part story beginning with the game warden of the title who, despairing of the bureaucracy and disregard of the human world, abruptly switches sides and begins laying his traps for men instead. And in the bizarre second part, a group of hedonists come to town for a little saturnalia and to contemplate "the dreadful beauty" of existence, only to be swept up in the manhunt for Herman. On their own, both volumes are slender storytelling jewels, but together they are an existential inquiry into the human animal by a unique and ingenious writer. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

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