Amy Hempel Bücher

Amy Hempel gilt in Deutschland als eine der großen unentdeckten Stimmen der amerikanischen Literatur. Ihre vier schmalen Bände, die in den letzten 30 Jahren erschienen sind, haben in den USA und Europa bereits den Status moderner Klassiker erreicht. Ihre minimalistischen Geschichten sind Kleinode, die den Leser in eine veränderte Perspektive eintauchen lassen. Sie bieten scharfsichtige Portraits scheinbarer Nichtigkeiten und behandeln zentrale Themen wie den Tod, die Angst vor menschlichen Bindungen und die Unsicherheiten, mit denen ihre Figuren konfrontiert sind. Diese Geschichten entfalten ihren Sog bereits im ersten Satz, sind unheimlich und originell, und jede hinterlässt einen bleibenden Eindruck im Kopf des Lesers. Hempel, geboren 1951, lebt in New York City und lehrt Creative Writing an Harvard. Ihre veröffentlichten Kurzgeschichtenbände umfassen unter anderem "Reasons to Live" und "The Dog of the Marriage". Ihre Werke sind in renommierten Publikationen erschienen und in bedeutenden Anthologien vertreten. Sie erhielt zahlreiche Auszeichnungen, darunter den PEN/Malamud Award und den REA Award for the Short Story. Kritiker loben ihre Texte als lebendig und komisch, wobei sie die Leser zur Reflexion anregen.

With her trademark compassion and wit, Hempel takes readers into the marriages, minor disasters, and moments of revelation in an uneasy America.

It is always "earthquake weather" in Amy Hempel's California, a landscape where everything can change without warning. Traditional resources—home, parents, lovers, friends, even willpower—are not dependable. And so the characters in these short, compelling stories have learned to depend on small triumphs of wit, irony, and spirit.A widow, surrounded by a small menagerie, comes to terms with her veterinarian husband's death; a young woman entertains her dying friend with trivia and reaffirms her own life; in the aftermath of an abortion, a woman compulsively knits a complete wardrobe for a friend's baby. Buffeted by rude shocks, thwarted by misconnections, the characters recognize that anything can finally become a reason to live.In a tubTonight is a favor to HollyCelia is backNashville gone to ashesSan FranciscoIn the cemetery where Al Jolson is buriedBeg, Sl Tog, Inc, Cont, RepGoingPool nightThree popes walk into a barThe man in BogotáWhen it's human instead of when it's dogWhy I'm hereBreathing JesusToday will be a quiet day

These are stories about people who make choices that seem inevitable, whose longings and misgivings evoke eternal human experience. With her trademark compassion and wit, Hempel takes readers into the marriages, minor disasters and moments of revelation in an uneasy America.

Critically acclaimed master of the short story Amy Hempel’s Tumble Home is narrated by people with skewed visions of home. Not exactly crazy, they become obsessed and irrational as their inner logic leads them astray. In the title novella, a woman living in a psychiatric halfway house writes to a man she has met only once. Proceeding in brief vignettes that link and illuminate, she recounts her peculiar life with the other patients. The accretions of anecdote lead deeper and deeper into the psyche and history of the narrator, gradually revealing the reason for her urgent letter.

“Amy, per me, è la dea degli scrittori.” Chuck Palahniuk La prima raccolta di racconti di Amy Hempel fu pubblicata a metà degli anni Ottanta, quando la scena letteraria americana vide un inaspettato rinascimento della forma del racconto con l’arrivo di voci quali Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, Jay McInerney, grazie anche al lavoro dell’editor Gordon Lish, il maestro della limatura, della riduzione, della semplicità stilistica. Ma la prosa di Amy Hempel è più facilmente assimilabile a quella di alcune “maestre”, da Cynthia Ozick a Grace Paley, ad Alice Munro. I suoi personaggi, feriti, irrequieti, non meno tragici di quelli di Carver, non si lasciano distruggere da avvenimenti imprevisti e inevitabili, da errori e scelte sbagliate. Hanno infatti imparato a contare su piccoli trionfi quotidiani di umorismo e ironia per trasformare le cicatrici in ragioni per continuare a vivere; e ad attingere alla riserva di forza dell’animo femminile, fatta di sincerità, capacità di emozione e di relazione, non solo con le persone ma con il mondo animale, o vegetale.