George Saunders – författare

I "Befrielsedagen" fortsätter novellmästaren George Saunders att utmana och överraska läsaren med sin lekfulla dekonstruktion av värderingar, språk och genre. Det handlar om historieberättande och ansvar, om mod och medmänsklighet, och om det utsiktslösa men ändå nödvändiga motståndet mot makten. När verkligheten alltmer närmar sig dystopin lämnar Saunders berättelser ett djupare avtryck än någonsin.

"Språkligt och berättartekniskt är Saunders en fröjd att läsa, och Niclas Nilssons översättning magnifik - ordval, stilnivå, allt sitter. Sammantaget går det inte att kalla Befrielsedagen för något annat än en av årets bästa, mest angelägna böcker." Sydsvenskan

"Jag bönfaller er att läsa George Saunders. Han är en av världens skickligaste författare och jag försäkrar er - hans ord älskar er läsning." Norrbottens-Kuriren

”Saunders skriver så det både svänger och viner om texten … Det hela är gripande utan att vara sentimentalt eller övertydligt, men också en mörbultande skräckfärd. Saunders cyniska och absurda versioner av framtiden känns trots allt som att de kryper allt närmare.” Sveriges Radio

"Herregud, så bra han är, Saunders! Äntligen en bok som är angelägen! Och skriven på ett språk som etsar sig in hos läsaren." Västerbottens-Kuriren

For the last twenty years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times. In his introduction, Saunders writes, “We’re going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn’t fully endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art—namely, to ask the big questions, questions like, How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?” He approaches the stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster. The process of writing, Saunders reminds us, is a technical craft, but also a way of training oneself to see the world with new openness and curiosity. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible.

George Saunders räknas idag som en av de främsta amerikanska novellisterna. I ”Pastoralia och andra noveller” har ett urval gjorts i samråd med författaren och visar på bredden och utvecklingen innan kritikerrosade romanen ”Lincoln i bardo”. Novellerna speglar ofta en utflippad men igenkännbar samtid och kan beskrivas som ett sprakande fyrverkeri av genialitet, gnistrande fantasi och svart satir.

The "best short-story writer in English" (Time) is back with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice and cuts to the very heart of what it means to live in community with our fellow humans. With his trademark prose-wickedly funny, unsentimental, and exquisitely tuned-Saunders continues to challenge and surprise: Here is a collection of prismatic, resonant stories that encompass joy and despair, oppression and revolution, bizarre fantasy and brutal reality. "Love Letter" is a tender missive from grandfather to grandson, in the midst of a dystopian political situation in the (not too distant, all too believable) future, that reminds us of our obligations to our ideals, ourselves, and one another. "Ghoul" is set in a Hell-themed section of an underground amusement park in Colorado and follows the exploits of a lonely, morally complex character named Brian, who comes to question everything he takes for granted about his reality.

In "Mother's Day," two women who loved the same man come to an existential reckoning in the middle of a hailstorm. In "Elliott Spencer," our eighty-nine-year-old protagonist finds himself brainwashed, his memory "scraped"-a victim of a scheme in which poor, vulnerable people are reprogrammed and deployed as political protesters. And "My House"-in a mere seven pages-comes to terms with the haunting nature of unfulfilled dreams and the inevitability of decay. Together, these nine subversive, profound, and essential stories coalesce into a case for viewing the world with the same generosity and clear-eyed attention Saunders does, even in the most absurd of circumstances.

Since its publication in 1996, George Saunders’s debut collection has grown in esteem from a cherished cult classic to a masterpiece of the form, inspiring an entire generation of writers along the way. In six stories and a novella, Saunders hatches an unforgettable cast of characters, each struggling to survive in an increasingly haywire world. With a new introduction by Joshua Ferris and a new author’s note by Saunders himself, this edition is essential reading for those seeking to discover or revisit a virtuosic, disturbingly prescient voice.   Praise for George Saunders and CivilWarLand in Bad Decline   “It’s no exaggeration to say that short story master George Saunders helped change the trajectory of American fiction.”—The Wall Street Journal   “Saunders’s satiric vision of America is dark and demented; it’s also ferocious and very funny.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times   “George Saunders is a writer of arresting brilliance and originality, with a sure sense of his material and apparently inexhaustible resources of voice. [CivilWarLand in Bad Decline] is scary, hilarious, and unforgettable.”—Tobias Wolff   “Saunders makes the all-but-impossible look effortless.”—Jonathan Franzen   “Not since Twain has America produced a satirist this funny.”—Zadie Smith   “An astoundingly tuned voice—graceful, dark, authentic, and funny—telling just the kinds of stories we need to get us through these times.”—Thomas Pynchon