The Walk - Robert Walser (tr. Christopher Middleton)

Robert Walser (1878–1956) was a Swiss modernist writer who was underappreciated by the general public in his lifetime but whose genius was recognised by other writers and thinkers, such as Franz Kafka, W.G. Sebald, J.M. Coetzee and Herman Hesse. The latter believed that if Walser ‘had a hundred thousand readers, the world would be a better place’. This book is a collection of short stories that showcase Walser’s deep understanding of the human psyche and empathy for his outsider protagonists. The title story follows a narrator who goes out on a walk that quickly becomes a meditation on artifice and sincerity, posturing and authenticity and the discovery of one’s true self through walking. At turns funny, surrealist and whimsy, these stories invite us to be more open and observant of the world around us.

One of the great works of European short fiction, by turns funny, reflective and profound

Ranging from one-page fantasies to novella-length studies of everyday existence, The Walk reveals the irresistible genius of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. Under-appreciated even in his own lifetime, Robert Walser has nonetheless been recognised by such writers as W.G. Sebald, Susan Sontag, Franz Kafka, Herman Hesse and J.M. Coetzee.

Like Kafka and Sebald, Walser wrote about the solitude and unease of human existence. Honest, wry and idiosyncratic, his stories are snapshots of the lives great artists, poor young men, beautiful women and talking animals alike. Ranging from the realist to the allegorical, the short fiction collected in this volume demonstrates Walser's uncanny ability to capture both life's strangeness and its small joys.

“If he had hundred thousand readers, the world would be a better place” Herman Hesse

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