Two novellas by Peter Handke—his first works to be published since he won the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature.
The Second Sword and
My Day in the Other Land
are two novellas by the 2019 Nobel laureate Peter Handke. The first picks up the story where Handke’s last work of fiction,
The Fruit Thief
(described in
The New York Times
as “an experience of unadulterated
literature
”), left off. Here a man has returned to his home in the suburbs of Paris, only to soon set out again. Why? We learn, over the course of a story redolent of Handke’s harrowing
A Sorrow Beyond Dreams
, that he is seeking to avenge his mother, who has been unjustly denounced in the pages of a newspaper.
The Second Sword
is a suspenseful work of self-examination: Will the narrator’s journey end in him throwing down the gauntlet?
is the first work written by Handke after he was awarded the Nobel Prize. Evoking imagery from the Bible and classical mythology, it portrays a man who has been possessed by demons, causing him to rage endlessly against the inhabitants of his rural village. Aided by his sister, he embarks on a journey to a lake on whose opposite shore lies the “other land.” What ensues is an exorcism of sorts—and one of Handke’s most evocative and original endings. Together,
and
are essential new entries in a body of work like no other.