The Objectivist Press published George Oppen’s first book Discrete Series, a collection of thirty-one short poems with a preface by Ezra Pound, in 1934. Four years earlier, the twenty-one-year-old poe
the people, the boats completely gone with the tsunami / tonight you would not be able to sleep —from Sea, Land, ShadowSea, Land, Shadow, the fourth collection by Kazuko Shiraishi to be published by N
A collection in five parts, Susan Howe’s electrifying new book opens with a preface by the poet that lays out some of Debths’ inspirations: the art of Paul Thek, the Isabella Stewart Gardner collectio
An expatriate professor, Vega, returns from exile in Canada to El Salvador for his mother’s funeral. A sensitive idealist and an aggrieved motor mouth, he sits at a bar with the author, Castellanos Mo
"Set in an isolated hamlet, Satantango unfolds over the course of a few rain-soaked days. Only a dozen inhabitants remain in the bleak village, rank with the stench of failed schemes, betrayals, failu
With a murder at its heart, Roberto Bola?o’s The Skating Rink is, among otherthings, a crime novel. Murder seems to have exerted a fascination for the endlessly talented Bola?o, who in his last
Driven to Abstraction is Rosmarie Waldrop's sixth collection of poetry with New Directions. The first of its two sections, "Sway-Backed Powerlines," consists of five sequences of lyrical prose poems
When the three novellas in The King of Trees were first published separately in China in the 1980s, "Ah Cheng fever" spread across the country. Never before had a fiction writer dealt with the Cultur
Robert Walser wrote many of his manuscripts in a highly enigmatic, reduced form. These narrow strips of paper, covered with tiny antlike pencil markings a millimeter high, came to light only after the
In my house praying was considered a weakness,like making love.And like making love it was followed by a long night of fear,so alone with the body. --Luljet
By now, Yukio Mishima's (1925-1970) dramatic demise through an act of seppuku after an inflammatory public speech has become the stuff of literary legend. With Patriotism, Mishima was able to give hi
With a murder at its heart, Roberto Bolano's The Skating Rink is, among other things, a crime novel. Murder seems to have exerted a fascination for the endlessly talented Bolano, who in his last inte
The singular work of Kenneth Patchen has influenced poets, artists and political activists for decades. New Directions is proud to launch a Patchen revival beginning with omnibus editions of his uniq
Even with his great commercial success, Tennessee Williams always considered himself an experimental playwright. In the last 25 years of his life his explorations increased--especially in shorter fo
Three long poems interspersed with prose pieces, Souls of the Labadie Tract takes as its starting point the Labadists, a Utopian Quietest sect that moved from the Netherlands to Cecil County, Marylan
Part spy novel, part romance, part Henry James, Your Face Tomorrow is a wholly remarkable display of the immense gifts of Javier Marias. With Fever and Spear, Volume One of his unfolding novel Your F
Restored to print after its original run in 1968, a modernist tale on the Asian-American experience finds Fourth Jane struggling with her developing sense of self in spite of frequent family relocatio
The narrator of Montano's Malady is a writer who is so obsessed with literature that he finds it impossible to distinguish between real life and fictional reality. Part picaresque novel, part intimat
In a comic masterpiece following the misadventures of a simple but hugely ambitious waiter in pre-World War II Prague, who rises to wealth only to lose everything with the onset of Communism, Bohumil
This brief and poignant novel by Wilhelm Genazino explores existential questions as its 46-year-old narrator reflects on broken relationships and other failures and struggles to come to terms with li
From Italy, an epistolary novel like no other, full of Tabucchi's special "enchantment, which trans-figures even as it captivates" (TLS).In It's Getting Later All the Time, an epistolary novel with a
Party in the Blitz, a new volume of Elias Canetti's autobiography, comes as a surprise gift to celebrate the Nobel Laureate's 100th birthday.At 85, beset by the desire to come to terms with his years
Lawrence Ferlinghetti lights out for the territories with Book I of his own born-in-the-U.S.A. epic, Americus.Describing Americus as "part documentary, part public pillow-talk, part personal epica de
Volume I of The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams ends with the unexpected triumph of The Glass Menagerie. Volume II extends the correspondence from 1946 to 1957, a time of intense creativity wh
This collection of recent poems is graced with a short introduction by the poet in which he says, "All I ever wanted to do was to paint light on the walls of life." For more than fifty years Ferlingh
George Oppen's New Collected Poems brings together all of the great Objectivist poet's published work, together with a selection of his previously unpublished poems. George Oppen's New Collected Poems
A reissue of Ferlinghetti's very short experimental plays (1965) with three new plays added to the original thirteen. In this collection Ferlinghetti takes a revolutionary look at modern theater and e
The novel begins at a time in the narrator's life when nothing seems to matter; whether he is reading newspaper posters blaring of wartime massacres, lying in bed with his wife or girlfriend, or flip
Javier Mar!as's A Heart So White chronicles with unnerving insistence the relentless power of the past. Juan knows little of the interior life of his father Ranz; but when Juan marries, he begins to
Can you imagine why a pornographer would be shy? Are you satisfied with the state of (a) World Society (b) your soul (c) American writing? Are you in the habit of reading books that could have been w
A timeless selection of brilliant short stories that won William Saroyan a position among the foremost, most widely popular writers of America when it first appeared in 1934.With the greatest of ease
The Samurai, without doubt one of the late Shusaku Endo's finest works, seamlessly combines historical fact with novelist's imaginings. Set in the period preceding the Christian persecutions in Japan
In this moving novel, a group of Japanese tourists, each of whom iswrestling with his or her own demons, travels to the River Ganges on apilgrimage of grace.
A holiday classic in an elegant New Directions edition. With lovely poetic lilt, this simple tale captures the child-eye view and an adult's warm remembrance of the time of presents, good things to e
