From the Man **Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestsellingauthor of Lincoln in the Bardo, a literary masterclasson how to become both a better writer and reader,on what makes great stories work,and what they can tell us about how to liveFrom the Man ****Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestsellingauthor of Lincoln in the Bardo, a literary masterclasson how to become both a better writer and reader,on what makes great stories work,and what they can tell us about how to live**

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
*
'A masterclass from a warm and engagingly enthusiastic companion' Guardian*

**'This book is a delight, and it's about delight too. How necessary, at our particular moment' Tessa Hadley
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From the New York Times-**bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo and Tenth of December comes a literary master class on what makes great stories work and what they can tell us about ourselves - and our world today.**

For the last twenty years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his university students. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, these essays are for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it's more relevant than ever in these turbulent times.

Funny, frank and rigorous, A Swim in the Pond in the Rain ultimately shows how great fiction can change a person's life and become a benchmark of their moral and ethical beliefs.

'Part intro to Russian literature, part musings on craft, A Swim in the Pond in the Rain is all pleasure'
Financial Times

Saunders is warm and vivacious company, funny and even-handed and increasingly wise . This book is an enthralling delve into life and its narration - for people interested in how fiction works, it's like breathing oxygen****

Vorwort
From the Man **Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestsellingauthor of Lincoln in the Bardo, a literary masterclasson how to become both a better writer and reader,on what makes great stories work,and what they can tell us about how to live**

Autorentext
George Saunders is the author of thirteen books, including the novel Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the Booker Prize in 2017, and five collections of stories including Tenth of December, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and the recent collection Liberation Day (selected by former President Obama has one of his ten favourite books of 2021). Three of Saunders' books Pastoralia, Tenth of December, and Lincoln in the Bardo were chosen for the New York Times' list of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. Saunders hosts the popular Story Club on Substack, which grew out of his book on the Russian short story, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. In 2013, he was named one of the world's 100 Most Influential People by Time magazine. He teaches in the creative writing program at Syracuse University.

Klappentext

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER PICKED BY THE SUNDAY TIMES, GUARDIAN, INDEPENDENT, IRISH TIMES, SPECTATOR, TLS, NEW STATESMAN, MAIL ON SUNDAY, I PAPER, PROSPECT, REVEW31 AND EVENING STANDARD AS A BOOK OF 2021 'A masterclass from a warm and engagingly enthusiastic companion' Guardian Summer Reading Picks 2021 'This book is a delight, and it's about delight too. How necessary, at our particular moment' Tessa Hadley ____ From the New York Times-**bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo and Tenth of December comes a literary master class on what makes great stories work and what they can tell us about ourselves - and our world today.* For the last twenty years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it's more relevant than ever in these turbulent times. In his introduction, Saunders writes, "We're going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn't fully endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art-namely, to ask the big questions, questions like, How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?" He approaches the stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster. The process of writing, Saunders reminds us, is a technical craft, but also a way of training oneself to see the world with new openness and curiosity. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain* is a deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible.

Zusammenfassung
From the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo, a literary masterclass on how to become both a better writer and reader, on what makes great stories work, and what they can tell us about how to live