Michael Hofmann
Joachim Redner reviews 'Berlin Alexanderplatz' by Alfred Döblin, translated by Michael Hofmann
Revered in Germany as one of the founders of literary modernism, the equal of Robert Musil and Thomas Mann, Alfred Döblin (1878–1957) has remained something of a mystery to English readers. Some are aware of Berlin Alexanderplatz: The story of Franz Biberkopf, translated by Eugene Jolas soon after its appearance ...
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I can readily see that I am not the intended reader for The Unauthorised Life of Ted Hughes. Born in the year his first book of poems came out (The Hawk in the Rain, 1957); made to read Hughes at school (I preferred Sylvia Plath); a graduate of the same university (Cambridge); my books published by the same publisher (Faber), and sharing (if at all ...
Jennifer Maiden's The Fox Petition: New Poems (Giramondo) conjures foxes 'whose eyes were ghosts with pity' and foxes of language that transform the world's headlines
... (read more)Did I fly there? I may have flown there.
Maybe in something with the specifications of a crop-duster.
The Sugar Coast. Everything comes with a name. A name and a nickname.
The Soaked Coast. Bundy. Blue rustle of cane. Home to Rum City Wrecking.
My office! My office at the Judy! The Judy
at the head of Fortitude Valley – Happy Valley! –
the ex-tea and -coffee warehouse, but reformed, reformed!
The industrial brick carcass full of arty bees,
sphinx of a building couchant on the crest of the hill,
the infra-red elevator mysteriously redolent of cloves,
restaurant smuggled into one corner, café in another,
and the whole dipped in chocolate and tile.
The ABR FAN Poll
Film-makers are forever squabbling over the Top Ten films of all time – a kind of Raging Bullfight – and the symphonists had their sonorous say recently, when ABC Classic FM invited listeners to nominate their classic 100 symphonies. So we thought it might be fun – instructive too – to poll our readers with regard to their Favourite Australian Novel.
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