Our Strangers
Lydia Davis“Davis is brilliant … She captures words as a hunter might & uses punctuation like a trapDavis is a high priestess of the startling, telling detail … a most original & daring mind” — Colm Tóibín, Daily Telegraph
“The patron saint of befuddled reality … Inimitable” — New York Times
“A writer of vast intelligence & originality” — Independent On Sunday
“An author who takes nothing for granted … her stories ask existential questions, about us & the world” — Los Angeles Times
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A trailblazer in the world of short-form prose' New Yorker Lydia Davis is a virtuoso at detecting the seemingly casual, inconsequential surprises of daily life & pinning them for inspection.
In Our Strangers, conversations are overheard & misheard, a special delivery letter is mistaken for a rare white butterfly, toddlers learning to speak identify a ping-pong ball as an egg & mumbled remarks betray a marriage. In the glow of Davis's keen noticing, strangers can become like family & family like strangers.
Our Strangers is a fascinating collection that confirms the genius of a writer whose every attention is transformative.
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Lydia Davis is a short story writer, the author of one novel & of two volumes of non-fiction, Essays One (2019) & Essays Two (2021). She is also an award-winning translator from French & other languages. Her honours include a MacArthur Fellowship (2003), the Award of Merit from the American Academy of Arts & Letters (2013), the Man Booker International Prize (2013) for her fiction & in 2020 the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. She has been decorated as both Chevalier & Officer of the Order of Arts & Letters by the French government for her fiction & translation.