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From the brilliant and incisive author of Mislaid - "a writer of extraordinary talent and range" (Jonathan Franzen) whose "capacity for inventions is immense" (BookForum) - comes a new collection of her earliest work: two wildly funny novellas (Sailing Towards the Sunset by Avner Shats and European Story for Avner Shats) available in one compact volume.
Years ago, Nell Zink resolved to write a book for her friend, the Israeli novelist Avner Shats, that would mirror his remarkable style. Unable to read his Hebrew, she was forced to start from scratch. Now, this tongue-in-cheek homage is available to Nell's growing readership for the first time, accompanied by a second dazzling and imaginative work that breathes - at Shats's request - the perfumed air of the Old Europe and stars a figure very much like Shats.
Sailing Towards the Sunset by Avner Shats is Zink's faux-translation of Shats's 1998 novel Lashut El Hashkia ("Sailing Towards the Sunset"). It flows with a narrative spin only the singular Zink could pull off - including both authentic and fictional versions of characters from Shats's life and work such as the author herself.
A fast-moving portrait of expat artists, authors, and academics on fellowships at the Villa Romana in Florence, European Story for Avner Shats centers on a trio of three indelible characters: an Israeli writer vaguely reminiscent of Shats, a German specialist in ancient lint, and a beautiful and fraudulent Russian performance artist.
Demonstrating the hallmarks of Zink's unique talent, Private Novelist is an intimate look into this acclaimed novelist's early work that will please her coterie of admirers and further burnish her lustrous reputation.
"Proof that experimental fiction can be fun." - Kirkus
"Initially written in three weeks' time and for Shats's eyes only, the writing can be at times pleasingly uninhibited, at other times recklessly dashed off. It's a tension that strangely fits this eccentric book, in style and in substance, binding its disparate parts together." - Publishers Weekly
This information about Private Novelist was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Fred Filkorn
Nell Zink grew up in the Tidewater region of Virginia. She did a variety of service and administrative jobs before becoming a professional novelist at age fifty. Before then, her publications were confined to an indie rock fanzine and short-lived blog, Animal Review. Her books to date include The Wallcreeper, Mislaid, Private Novelist (two novellas written for her friend Avner Shats), Nicotine, Doxology, and Avalon. Three of her books became New York Times Notable Books, and one was longlisted for the National Book Award. Her writing has appeared in n+1, Granta, and Harper's Magazine. In 2022, she served as the Friedrich Dürrenmatt Guest Professor for World Literature at the University of Bern, Switzerland. She lives near Berlin.
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