Elif Batuman Libros

A collection of brand-new short stories written by prize-winning, bestselling writers and inspired by Kafka - published to commemorate the centenary of his death Chosen as a 2024 highlight in the Guardian, the Financial Times, the Daily Mail, New Statesman, Esquire and the New European Franz Kafka is widely regarded as one of the great geniuses of twentieth-century literature. What happens when some of the most original literary minds of today take an idea, a mood or a line from his work and use it to spark something new?From a future society who ask their AI servants to construct a giant tower to reach God; to a flat hunt that descends into a comically absurd bureaucratic nightmare; to a population experiencing a wave of unbearable, contagious panic attacks, these ten specially commissioned stories are by turns mind-bending, funny, unsettling and haunting. Inspired by the visionary imagination of a writer working one hundred years ago, they speak powerfully to the strangeness of being alive today.

From the acclaimed author of The Idiot, this narrative follows beloved protagonist Selin as she embarks on a journey of self-discovery during her sophomore year at Harvard in 1996. As the only American-born member of her family, Selin feels the pressure to make her college experience meaningful. She grapples with the complexities of her summer experiences, including her enigmatic crush Ivan, who connected her with a job in Hungary, and the peculiar characters she encountered there. Additionally, she finds herself entangled with Ivan's ex-girlfriend, who is now reaching out to her. This situation feels like the plot of an intriguing novel, yet Selin questions the prevalence of troubled women in literature. She wonders how to lead a life as compelling as a story without becoming one of those abandoned figures. Inspired by her literature classes and the confidence of her peers, Selin comes to recognize the significance of parties, alcohol, and sex, and she is determined to embrace these experiences, regardless of the consequences. With the urgency and intensity of youth, this landmark novel explores the challenges of growing up, leaving readers with thought-provoking questions long after the final page.

Batuman searches for the answers to the big questions in the details of lived experience, combining fresh readings of the great Russians with the sad and funny stories of the lives they continue to influence--including her own.

Selin, a tall, highly strung Turkish-American from New Jersey turns up at Harvard with no idea what to expect. What she doesn't expect is: - How much time she will spend thinking about language and its limitations; - An opinionated cosmopolitan Serb named Svetlana, who will become her confidante; - A mathematician from Hungary called Ivan, whom she will obsess over when she is supposed to be studying; - Feeling dangerously overwhelmed by the challenges and possibilities of adulthood. But most of all, Selin does not expect to embark on a study of precisely how baffling love can be when you are trying to forge a self...

Warum bloß bleibt Hans Castorp in Thomas Manns Zauberberg sieben Jahre im Sanatorium, obwohl er selbst keine Tuberkulose hat? Natürlich geht es um die Liebe. Und um die Liebe dreht sich auch alles in »Die Besessenen«. Elif Batuman erzählt von ihrer großen Bewunderung für die klassischen russischen Autoren und tut dies auf eine so kluge und berührende Weise, dass man bald selbst vor Begeisterung sprüht. Dabei liest sie niemals, ohne nicht gleichzeitig mit einem Auge auf ihr Leben und die Menschen um sie herum zu schielen. Wie Don Quixote zieht sie aus, um in der Welt etwas über die Literatur zu erfahren und in den Büchern etwas über die Welt. Batuman schreibt dabei mit so viel schillernder Raffinesse, dass am Ende keine Literaturwissenschaft entsteht, sondern Literatur.