Program

Research Programs: Fellowships for College Teachers and Independent Scholars

Period of Performance

7/1/2008 - 6/30/2009

Funding Totals

$40,000.00 (approved)
$40,000.00 (awarded)


A Biography of Robert Walser (1878-1956): Novelist, Short Prose Author, Dramatist, and Poet

FAIN: FB-53231-07

Susan Bernofsky
Unaffiliated Independent Scholar (New York, NY 10025)

I am proposing to write a critical biography (the first ever in English) of the great Swiss-German modernist author Robert Walser, a contemporary of Kafka’s who in Europe is considered one of the most important writers of the early twentieth century. My book will serve as an introduction to Walser’s work—his four novels, poems, “dramolettes” and thousands of short prose pieces—as well as to his life. Such a book is sorely needed, as there is no recent book on Walser available in English and no biography in any language up to current critical standards.





Associated Products

Clairvoyant of the Small: The Life of Robert Walser (Book)
Title: Clairvoyant of the Small: The Life of Robert Walser
Author: Susan Bernofsky
Abstract: The first English-language biography of one of the great literary talents of the twentieth century, written by his award-winning translator.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://worldcat.org/title/1305439190
Publisher: Yale University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780300220643
Copy sent to NEH?: No