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  • Published: 1 March 2022
  • ISBN: 9780241554654
  • Imprint: Hamish Hamilton
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 592
  • RRP: $45.00

Essays Two




Lydia Davis returns with a timeless collection of essays on literature and language.


'A writer as mighty as Kafka, as subtle as Flaubert, and as epoch-making, in her own way, as Proust'(Ali Smith)
Lydia Davis gathered a selection of her non-fiction writing for the first time in 2019 with Essays. Now, she continues the project with Essays Two, focusing on the art of translation, the learning of foreign languages through reading, and her experience of translating, amongst others, Flaubert and Proust, about whom she writes with an unmatched understanding of the nuances of their styles.
Every essay in this book is a revelation.

  • Published: 1 March 2022
  • ISBN: 9780241554654
  • Imprint: Hamish Hamilton
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 592
  • RRP: $45.00

About the author

Lydia Davis

Lydia Davis is the author of one novel and several collections of short fiction, the latest of which is Samuel Johnson Is Indignant. She is also the translator of numerous works from the French by, among others, Maurice Blanchot, Pierre Jean Jouve and Michel Leiris, and was recently named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government.

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Praise for Essays Two

'Precise, concentrated, lyrical. No one writes like Lydia Davis, and everyone should read her'

Hanif Kureishi