Lydia Davis: A Study

Lydia Davis is one of the most inventive and stimulating authors working in the world today. Winner of the Man Booker International Prize in 2013 for The Collected Stories, her immense global reputation continues to grow. The aim of this volume is to show why this is the case. It offers a context for her work, demonstrating her alignment to contemporary cultural phenomena like postmodernism, and revealing her pioneering innovations in the field of flash fiction. It begins by exploring her background and influences, then goes on to discuss some of her key stories, addressing her principal themes and preoccupations, and revealing her concern with issues such as identity, language, obsession, and, above all, the process of writing. Ultimately it reveals Davis as an intellectually engaged, philosophical writer whose work interrogates the human condition in totally original, intensely illuminating ways.

About the author:

Paul McDonald works at the University of Wolverhampton where he is Senior Lecturer in English and Course Leader for Creative Writing. He is the author of fourteen books, including three poetry collections and three comic novels. His scholarly work includes books on Philip Roth, the fiction of the industrial Midlands, American humour, and the philosophy of humour.

128  pages

ISBN: 978-1-910996-16-4