Damion Searls – författare

A child who will be named Johannes is born. An old man named Johannes dies. Between these two points, Jon Fosse gives us the details of an entire life, starkly compressed. Beginning with Johannes’s father’s thoughts as his wife goes into labour, and ending with Johannes's own thoughts as he embarks upon a day in his life when everything is exactly the same, yet totally different, Morning and Evening is a novel concerning the beautiful dream that our lives have meaning.

A deep dive into the nature of translation from one of its most acclaimed practitioners  “Searls’s philosophy is ultimately one of freedom—to move beyond mere equivalence, to translate how a text communicates rather than simply what it says.”—Max Norman, New Yorker  Avoiding theoretical debates and clichéd metaphors, award‑winning translator Damion Searls has written a fresh, approachable, and convincing account of what translation really is and what translators actually do. As the translator of sixty books from multiple languages, Searls has spent decades grappling with words on the most granular level: nouns and verbs, accents on people’s names, rhymes, rhythm, “untranslatable” cultural nuances. Here, he connects a wealth of specific examples to larger philosophical issues of reading and perception. Translation, he argues, is fundamentally a way of reading—but reading is much more than taking in information, and translating is far from a mechanical process of converting one word to another. This sharp and inviting exploration of the theory and practice of translation is for anyone who has ever marveled at the beauty, force, and movement of language.

A deep dive into the nature of translation from one of its most acclaimed practitioners  “Searls’s philosophy is ultimately one of freedom—to move beyond mere equivalence, to translate how a text communicates rather than simply what it says.”—Max Norman, New Yorker  Avoiding theoretical debates and clichéd metaphors, award‑winning translator Damion Searls has written a fresh, approachable, and convincing account of what translation really is and what translators actually do. As the translator of sixty books from multiple languages, Searls has spent decades grappling with words on the most granular level: nouns and verbs, accents on people’s names, rhymes, rhythm, “untranslatable” cultural nuances. Here, he connects a wealth of specific examples to larger philosophical issues of reading and perception. Translation, he argues, is fundamentally a way of reading—but reading is much more than taking in information, and translating is far from a mechanical process of converting one word to another. This sharp and inviting exploration of the theory and practice of translation is for anyone who has ever marveled at the beauty, force, and movement of language.

The captivating untold story of Hermann Rorschach and his famous inkblot test, which has shaped our view of human personality and become a fixture in popular culture  In 1917, working alone in a remote Swiss asylum, psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach devised an experiment to probe the human mind. For years he had grappled with the theories of Freud and Jung while also absorbing the aesthetic of a new generation of modern artists. He had come to believe that who we are is less a matter of what we say, as Freud thought, than what we see.Rorschach himself was a visual artist, and his test, a set of ten carefully designed inkblots, quickly made its way to America, where it took on a life of its own. Co-opted by the military after Pearl Harbor, it was a fixture at the Nuremberg trials and in the jungles of Vietnam. It became an advertising staple, a cliché in Hollywood and journalism, and an inspiration to everyone from Andy Warhol to Jay Z. The test was also given to millions of defendants, job applicants, parents in custody battles, workers applying for jobs, and people suffering from mental illness—or simply trying to understand themselves better. And it is still used today.Damion Searls draws on unpublished letters and diaries as well as a cache of previously unknown interviews with Rorschach’s family, friends, and colleagues to tell the unlikely story of the test’s creation, its controversial reinvention, and its remarkable endurance—and what it all reveals about the power of perception. Elegant and original, The Inkblots shines a light on the twentieth century’s most visionary synthesis of art and science.From the Hardcover edition.

The Korean Electronics Industry documents the technologies, manufacturing procedures, capabilities, and infrastructure that have made the Republic of Korea successful in the electronics industry. The book covers the major segments of Korea's electronics industry, including semiconductors, packaging, displays, printed circuit boards, and systems. In addition, this book examines the roles that government, associations, research organizations, educational institutions, and major companies have played in establishing an infrastructure where the industry can flourish.

The Korean Electronics Industry documents the technologies, manufacturing procedures, capabilities, and infrastructure that have made the Republic of Korea successful in the electronics industry. The book covers the major segments of Korea''s electronics industry, including semiconductors, packaging, displays, printed circuit boards, and systems. In addition, this book examines the roles that government, associations, research organizations, educational institutions, and major companies have played in establishing an infrastructure where the industry can flourish.

The Korean Electronics Industry documents the technologies, manufacturing procedures, capabilities, and infrastructure that have made the Republic of Korea successful in the electronics industry. The book covers the major segments of Korea''s electronics industry, including semiconductors, packaging, displays, printed circuit boards, and systems. In addition, this book examines the roles that government, associations, research organizations, educational institutions, and major companies have played in establishing an infrastructure where the industry can flourish.

The Korean Electronics Industry documents the technologies, manufacturing procedures, capabilities, and infrastructure that have made the Republic of Korea successful in the electronics industry. The book covers the major segments of Korea's electronics industry, including semiconductors, packaging, displays, printed circuit boards, and systems. In addition, this book examines the roles that government, associations, research organizations, educational institutions, and major companies have played in establishing an infrastructure where the industry can flourish.

*SUNDAY TIMES 'BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2017': 'the book develops into a bigger biography of the strange set of images [Rorschach] bequeathed, taking in everything from the origins of abstract art to the invention of the idea of empathy' James McConnachie, Sunday Times *IRISH INDEPENDENT 'BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2017' *NEW YORK POST 'MOST THRILLING AND FASCINATING BOOKS OF 2017': 'rich and engaging... Damion Searls did a phenomenal job' 'Searls restores much of [the inkblot test's] potency in this rich and resonant book . . . Even in the age of alternative facts, there are still right answers, and wrong ones, and the inkblots still ring true’ Sunday Times  ‘A marvelous book about how one man and his enigmatic test came to shape our collective imagination. The Rorschach test is a great subject and The Inkblots is worthy of it: beguiling, fascinating, and full of new discoveries every time you look.’ David Grann, author of The Lost City of Z and Killers of the Flower Moon   ‘It seems incredible that no one before Damion Searls has ever written a biography of Rorschach… His early death may have deterred other would-be biographers, but Searls sails past it with style: the second half of his book traces the fortunes of Rorschach’s famous test, which became a household word in America after World War II, when the U.S. Army used it on draftees. Searls uses this unlikely-seeming artifact to illuminate two histories, one scientific, the other cultural, both full of surprises.’ Lorin Stein, The Paris Review ‘This excellent book begins as a biography and becomes, when [Rorschach] suddenly dies of a ruptured appendix at the age of thirty-seven, a cultural history of his creation.’ Harper's The captivating, untold story of Hermann Rorschach and his famous inkblot test, which has shaped our view of human personality and become a fixture in popular culture.   In 1917, working alone in a remote Swiss asylum, psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach devised an experiment to probe the human mind. He had come to believe that who we are is less a matter of what we say, as Freud thought, than what we see. Rorschach himself was a talented illustrator, and his test, a set of ten carefully designed inkblots, quickly made its way to America, where it took on a life of its own. Co-opted by the military after Pearl Harbor, Rorschach’s test was a fixture at the Nuremberg trials and in the jungles of Vietnam. It became an advertising staple, a cliché in Hollywood and journalism, and an inspiration to everyone from Andy Warhol to Jay-Z. The test was also taken by millions of defendants, job applicants, parents in custody battles and people suffering from mental illness – or simply trying to understand themselves better. And it is still used today.   Damion Searls draws on untranslated letters and diaries, and a cache of previously unknown interviews with Rorschach’s family, friends and colleagues, to tell the unlikely story of the test’s creation, its controversial reinvention and its remarkable endurance. Elegant and original, The Inkblots shines a light on the twentieth century’s most visionary synthesis of art and science.

SUNDAY TIMES 'BOOKS OF THE YEAR': 'the book develops into a bigger biography of the strange set of images [Rorschach] bequeathed, taking in everything from the origins of abstract art to the invention of the idea of empathy' – James McConnachie, Sunday Times IRISH INDEPENDENT 'BOOKS OF THE YEAR'The captivating, untold story of Hermann Rorschach and his famous inkblot test, which has shaped our view of human personality and become a fixture in popular culture. In 1917, working alone in a remote Swiss asylum, psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach devised an experiment to probe the human mind. He had come to believe that who we are is less a matter of what we say, as Freud thought, than what we see. Rorschach himself was a talented illustrator, and his test, a set of ten carefully designed inkblots, quickly made its way to America, where it took on a life of its own. Co-opted by the military after Pearl Harbor, Rorschach’s test was a fixture at the Nuremberg trials and in the jungles of Vietnam. It became an advertising staple, a cliché in Hollywood and journalism, and an inspiration to everyone from Andy Warhol to Jay-Z. The test was also taken by millions of defendants, job applicants, parents in custody battles and people suffering from mental illness – or simply trying to understand themselves better. And it is still used today.Damion Searls draws on untranslated letters and diaries, and a cache of previously unknown interviews with Rorschach’s family, friends and colleagues, to tell the unlikely story of the test’s creation, its controversial reinvention and its remarkable endurance. Elegant and original, The Inkblots shines a light on the twentieth century’s most visionary synthesis of art and science.

Acclaimed translator Damion Searls's exuberant debut novella navigates the bittersweet tug-of-war between nostalgia and living life meaningfully in a world buzzing with information overload.Analog Days is a snapshot of a circle of friends living through the sorrows and joys of a particular inflection point in history. Amid the ever-present news cycles, watching the world shift around them, they fall back on film and friendship and art as the last bastions of meaning in their fragmented lives. Moving from coffee shops to bars, from New York City to San Francisco, Analog Days immerses us in the individual lives set adrift among the pivotal events of our recent history.

Acclaimed translator Damion Searls's exuberant debut novella navigates the bittersweet tug-of-war between nostalgia and living life meaningfully in a world buzzing with information overload.Analog Days is a snapshot of a circle of friends living through the sorrows and joys of a particular inflection point in history. Amid the ever-present news cycles, watching the world shift around them, they fall back on film and friendship and art as the last bastions of meaning in their fragmented lives. Moving from coffee shops to bars, from New York City to San Francisco, Analog Days immerses us in the individual lives set adrift among the pivotal events of our recent history.

The largest one-volume edition of Thoreau’s 25-year journal, with “some of the most vigorous and original prose in English” and insights on Walden and other works (Washington Post).Henry David Thoreau’s Journal was his life’s work: the daily practice of writing that accompanied his daily walks, the workshop where he developed his books and essays, and a project in its own right. This is one of the most intensive explorations ever made of the everyday environment, the revolving seasons, and the changing self.It is a treasure trove of some of the finest prose in English and, for those acquainted with it, its prismatic pages exercise a hypnotic fascination. Yet at roughly seven thousand pages, or two million words, it remains Thoreau’s least-known work.This reader’s edition, the largest one-volume edition of Thoreau’s Journal ever published, is the first to capture the scope, rhythms, and variety of the work as a whole. Ranging freely over the world at large, the Journal is no less devoted to the life within. As Thoreau says, “It is in vain to write on the seasons unless you have the seasons in you.”“ . . . a superb and uniquely accessible edition of an essential American masterpiece.” —Booklist

For more than ninety years, eager writers and young poets, even those simply looking for a purpose in life, have embraced the wisdom of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, first published in 1929. Most readers and scholars assumed that the letters from young poet were forever lost to posterity. Yet, shockingly, the letters were recently discovered by Erich Unglaub, a Rilke scholar, and published in German in 2019. The acclaimed translator Damion Searls has now not only retranslated Rilke’s original letters but also translated the letters by Franz Xaver Kappus, an Austrian military cadet and aspiring poet. This timeless edition, in addition to joining the two sets of letters together for the first time in English, provides a new window into the workings of Rilke’s visionary poetic and philosophical mind, allowing us to re-experience the literary genius of one of the most inspiring works of twentieth-century literature.

A slim but powerful work of metafiction by a Nobel Prize-winning French writer and intellectual.André Gide is the inventor of modern metafiction and of autofiction, and his short novel Marshlands shows him handling both forms with a deft and delightful touch. The protagonist of Marshlands is a writer who is writing a book called Marshlands, which is about a reclusive character who lives all alone in a stone tower. The narrator, by contrast, is anything but a recluse: He is an indefatigable social butterfly, flitting about the Paris literary world and always talking about, what else, the wonderful book he is writing, Marshlands. He tells his friends about the book, and they tell him what they think, which is not exactly flattering, and of course those responses become part of the book in the reader’s hand. Marshlands is both a poised satire of literary pretension and a superb literary invention, and Damion Searls’s new translation of this early masterwork by one of the key figures of twentieth-century literature brings out all the sparkle of the original.

Melancholy I-II is a fictional invocation of the nineteenth-century Norwegian artist Lars Hertervig, who painted luminous landscapes, suffered mental illness and died poor in 1902. In this wild, feverish narrative, Jon Fosse delves into Hertervig’s mind as the events of one day precipitate his mental breakdown. A student of Hans Gude at the Academy of Art in Düsseldorf, Hertervig is paralyzed by anxieties about his talent and is overcome with love for Helene Winckelmann, his landlady’s daughter. Marked by inspiring lyrical flights of passion and enraged sexual delusions, Hertervig’s fixation on Helene persuades her family that he must leave. Oppressed by hallucinations and with nowhere to go, Hertervig shuttles between a cafe, where he endures the mockery of his more sophisticated classmates, and the Winckelmann’s apartment, which he desperately tries to re-enter – a limbo state which leads him inexorably into a state of madness. Published here in one volume in English for the first time, Melancholy I-II is a major novel by ‘the Beckett of the twenty-first century’ (Le Monde).

In her old house by the fjord, Signe lies on a bench and sees a vision of herself as she was more than twenty years earlier: standing by the window waiting for her husband Asle, on that terrible late November day when he took his rowboat out onto the water and never returned. Her memories widen out to include their whole life together, and beyond: the bonds of family and the battles with implacable nature stretching back over five generations, to Asle's great-great-grandmother Aliss. In Jon Fosse's vivid, hallucinatory prose, all these moments in time inhabit the same space, and the ghosts of the past collide with those who still live on. Aliss at the Fire, is a visionary masterpiece, a haunting exploration of love and loss that ranks among the greatest meditations on marriage and human fate.

A man starts driving without knowing where he is going. He alternates between turning right and left, and finally he gets stuck at the end of a forest road. Soon it gets dark and starts to snow, but instead of going back to find help, he ventures, foolishly, into the dark forest. Inevitably, the man gets lost, and as he grows cold and tired, he encounters a glowing being amid the obscurity. Strange, haunting and dreamlike, A Shining is a luminous tale about the boundary between life and death by Jon Fosse, ‘the Beckett of the twenty-first century’ (Le Monde).

‘If there’s any metaphor I would use for the act of writing, it would have to be listening,’ says Jon Fosse in A Silent Language, the lecture he delivered after being awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature. When he writes, Fosse explains, he listens for texts that exist somewhere outside of himself in order to transcribe them before they disappear. With reverence and humility, Fosse traces his relationship to writing and celebrates the capacity of language to embrace the mystery, complexity and existential uncertainty of the human experience. ‘It is only in the silence that you can hear God’s voice,’ he says, offering a key to his beloved works of drama and fiction. ‘Maybe.’