When German author W. G. Sebald died in a car accident at the age of fifty-seven, the literary world mourned the loss of a writer whose oeuvre it was just beginning to appreciate. Through published interviews with and essays on Sebald, award-winning translator and author Lynne Sharon Schwartz offers a profound portrait of the writer, who has been praised posthumously for his unflinching explorations of historical cruelty, memory, and dislocation.
With contributions from poet, essayist, and translator Charles Simic, New Republic editor Ruth Franklin, Bookworm radio host Michael Silverblatt, and more, The Emergence of Memory offers Sebald’s own voice in interviews between 1997 up to a month before his death in 2001. Also included are cogent accounts of almost all of Sebald’s books, thematically linked to events in the contributors’ own lives.
Contributors include Carole Angier, Joseph Cuomo, Ruth Franklin, Michael Hofmann, Arthur Lubow, Tim Parks, Michael Silverblatt, Charles Simic, and Eleanor Wachtel. “In each of the five interviews included here the truly remarkable voice of Sebald is laid bare upon the page. One gets a clear sense of the deep intelligence and the wry, self-deprecating humor so modestly displayed and so spontaneous.” –Vertigo: Collecting and Reading W. G. Sebald

“Schwartz does a fine job of evoking this elusive author.” –David Ulin, Los Angeles Times

“In The Emergence of Memory, interviews and critical essays expose the tactile reality of a writer who so often dealt with intangible emotions. . . . Lynne Sharon Schwartz's compilation of criticism and in-depth interviews by prominent writers and critics reveals Sebald's curiosity and obligation as a writer.” –Michele Filgate, Brooklyn Rail