Peter Handke was born in Griffen, Austria, in 1942. He came to early prominence in the 1960s for such experimental plays as
Kaspar and rapidly established himself asone of the most respected German-language writers of his generation, producing fiction, translations, memoirs, screenplays, and essays. Among his best-known novels are
The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick,
Repetition, and
My Year in the No-Man’s Bay. He has directed adaptions of his novels
The Left-Handed Woman and
Absence and collaborated with filmmaker Wim Wenders on four films, including
Wings of Desire. In addition to
Slow Homecoming, NYRB Classics has also published Handke’s novel
Short Letter, Long Farewell. Peter Handke won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2019.
Benjamin Kunkel is the author of the novel Indecision and a founding editor of n+1 magazine.
Ralph Manheim (1907–1992) translated Günter Grass, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Hermann Hesse, and Martin Heidegger, along with many other German and French authors.