Essays Two: On Proust, Translation, Foreign Languages, and the City of Arles by Lydia Davis

Lydia Davis, who has been called “a magician of self-consciousness” by Jonathan Franzen and “the best prose stylist in America” by Rick Moody, gathered a selection of her essays for the first time in 2019 with Essays One. Now she continues her nonfiction project with Essays Two.

This edition collects, for the first time, Davis’s essays and talks on the art of translation; the experience of translating Proust, Flaubert, and Michel Leiris; learning a foreign language through reading; and an extended immersion in the city of Arles.

Davis, the winner of the Man Booker International Prize for her fiction and a finalist for the National Book Award, showcases her sharp literary mind and invaluable insight in this new collection of her nonfiction works.