After several years abroad, a young man returns to his hometown to seek the man he calls master. This master, a brilliant philosopher, had made the young man into a disciple before sending him out into the world to put his teachings into practice. Returning three years later, the disciple finds his master has abandoned his wife and child and moved into a squalid one-room flat, cutting himself off completely from his former life. Disillusioned and reeling from the discovery, the young man spends an entire night listening to his master s bitter denunciation of the ideals they once shared....

Since his first collection of poetry appeared in 1953, Philippe Jaccottet has sought to express the ineffable that lies at the heart of our material world in his essential, elemental poetry. As one of Switzerland's most prominent and prolific men of letters, Jaccottet has published more than a dozen books of poetry and criticism.

One of Europe's finest contemporary poets, Jaccottet is a writer of exacting attention. Through keen observations of the natural world, of art, literature, music, and reflections on the human condition, Jaccottet opens his readers' eyes to the transcendent in...

Hans Magnus Enzensberger takes the title for this collection of daring short essays on topical themes--politics, economics, religion, society--not from Jeremy Bentham's famous prison but from a mid-1930s Cabinet of Curiosities opened in Germany by Karl Valentin. -There, - writes Enzensberger, -viewers could admire, along with implements of torture, all manner of abnormalities and sensational inventions.- And that's what he offers here: a wide-ranging, surprising look at all manner of strange aspects of our contemporary world.
As masterly with the essay as he is with fiction and poetry,...

A conversation between Kiefer and a writer and theologian, featuring 34 color images of Kiefer's work.

The first volume of Notebooks spans the years 1998-1999 and traces the origins and creative process of Kiefer's visual works during this period.