The most important writer in the world
Of course one of the authors who helped me carry on back then was Thomas Bernhard. But that wasn’t until a little later. Another Thomas, Cousineau, provides a comprehensive introduction to Bernhard’s work in this long article on In Writing’s site dedicated to the man Italo Calvino called “the most important writer in the world”.
Bernhard is only gradually, and posthumously, making himself known in the English-speaking countries. Cousineau tells us that “Benjamin Weissman, writing in the Los Angeles Times, regrets the lack of an American equivalent of Bernhard, which he attributes to differences in cultural climates: ‘Serious literary fiction writers here don’t have the kind of impact here that they do in Europe, and if there was an American Bernhard his manuscripts would all be piled in his closet. No one would publish him.” Perhaps in Europe they ignore writers like Ian McMillan too.
Other Splinters posts of interest:
- Every month is like February
- Waggish
- Cinematic writing: on McEwan and Bernhard
- Repetition again, part 2
- Exposition
