Wounded Storyteller

E. T. A. Hoffmann was a German Romantic author of fantasy and horror, as well as a lawyer, composer, music critic, and artist. Jack Zipes is professor emeritus of German and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota and an esteemed scholar of fairy tales. Natalie Frank is an acclaimed artist known for her previous books of fairy tales, including Tales of the Brothers Grimm. Karen Russell is an American fiction writer whose work includes the story collections Orange World and Vampires in the Lemon Grove and the novel Swamplandia!

“Sumptuous. . . . Enough eldritch ferocity to supply hallucinatory macro-doses to you and every adult you know. . . . [Natalie Frank’s] artwork . . .  is gruesome perfection, for Hoffmann’s tales intend to shake us out of our torpor, to make us see the fantastical forces at work all around us.”—Meghan Cox Gurdon, Wall Street Journal“This pioneering master of the uncanny is as relevant as ever. . . . Capture[s] the brilliance of E. T. A. Hoffmann, whose influence ranges from Freud to Poe to Blade Runner.”—Washington Post“With Natalie Frank we see Hoffmann through another subjectivity. Put differently, we encounter a further translation. The Wounded Storyteller is bizarre and beautiful, and entirely Hoffmannesque.”—Joanna Neilly, Translation and Literature“Frank and Zipes have met the challenge of taking on Hoffman with fierce energy, investing these timeless tales with a new relevance and contemporary sensibility.”—Claire Gilman, The Drawing Center“Frank’s extraordinary artwork frames Zipes’s translations of Hoffmann’s stories on each page, offering readers an experience in which the visual images and verbal texts are in constant conversation, commenting on and enriching each other.”—Donald Haase, author of Folktales and Fairy Tales: Traditions and Texts from Around the World