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Fiction
writer and translator Lydia Davis named Fellow of the New
York State Writers Institute
Contact: Suzanne
Lance (518) 442-5624
Photo: www.albany.edu/writers-inst/prphotos.html
ALBANY,
N.Y. (September 29, 2003) -- Lydia Davis, acclaimed fiction
writer, translator, and associate professor/Writer-in-Residence
in the University at Albany�s Department of English has been
named a Fellow of the New York State Writers Institute for
the academic years 2003-2005. As a Fellow, Davis will advise
the Institute�s directors on programming for the visiting
writers series and other literary projects.
Lydia
Davis is famous in literary circles for her extremely short
and brilliantly inventive short stories. Her newest collection,
�Samuel Johnson Is Indignant� (2002) is a book of 56 short,
sharp meditations on life, language and such miscellaneous
topics as lawns, funeral homes and jury duty. �Elle� magazine
praised it for its �Highly intelligent, wildly entertaining
stories, bound by visionary, philosophical, comic prose�part
Gertrude Stein, part Simone Weil, and pure Lydia Davis.� �Publisher�s
Weekly� said that the book �showcases the wordplay and distillation
of meaning that have become her stylistic hallmarks.�
Davis�
previous works include �Almost No Memory� (stories, 1998),
�The End of the Story� (novel, 1995), �Break It Down� (stories,
1986), �Story and Other Stories� (1983), and �The Thirteenth
Woman� (stories, 1976).
Grace
Paley wrote of �Almost No Memory� that Lydia Davis is the
kind of writer �that makes you say, �Oh, at last!�brains,
language, energy, a playfulness with form, and what appears
to be a generous nature.�� Benjamin Weissman, writing in the
Los Angeles Times Book Review,
credited Davis with �one of the driest senses of humor on
the planet.� The collection was chosen as one of the �25 Favorite
Books of 1997� by the �Voice Literary Supplement� and one
of the �100 Best Books of 1997� by the Los
Angeles Times.
Davis
first received serious critical attention for her collection
of stories, �Break It Down,� which was selected as a finalist
for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Praised by many critics for their
formal and thematic eclecticism and compelling tightly-knit
narratives, the stories in �Break It Down� attest, as Michiko
Kakutani has written in the New
York Times, �to the author�s gifts as an observer and
anarchist of emotion.� The book�s positive critical reception
helped to win Davis a prestigious Whiting Writer�s Award in
1988.
Davis
is also a celebrated translator of French literature into
English. The French government named her a Chevalier of the
Order of Arts and Letters for her distinguished translations
of works by Maurice Blanchot, Pierre Jean Jouve, Francoise
Giroud, Michel Butor and others.
This
year, Davis published a new translation (the first in more
than 80 years) of Marcel Proust�s masterpiece, �Swann�s Way,�
the first volume of Proust�s �In Search of Lost Time.� The
�Sunday Telegraph� (London) called the new translation �A
triumph [that] will bring this inexhaustible artwork to new
audiences throughout the English-speaking world.� Writing
for the Irish Times,
Frank Wynne said, �What soars in this new version is the simplicity
of language and fidelity to the cambers of Proust�s prose�
Davis� translation is magnificent, precise.�
Lydia
Davis currently serves as associate professor and Writer-in-Residence
in the University at Albany�s Department of English.
For
additional information, contact the Writers Institute at (518)
442-5620.
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