Peter Stamm
Author of Agnes
About the Author
Image credit: Peter Stamm Foto: privat
Works by Peter Stamm
Associated Works
McSweeney's Issue 42 (McSweeney's Quarterly Concern): Multiples (2013) — Translator/Contributor — 62 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Stamm, Peter
- Legal name
- Stamm, Peter
- Birthdate
- 1963-01-18
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- Switzerland
- Birthplace
- Weinfelden, Thurgau, Suïssa
- Places of residence
- Weinfelden, Thurgau, Switzerland
Winterthur, Zürich, Switzerland
New York, New York, USA
Paris, France - Education
- University of Zurich
- Awards and honors
- Alemannischer Literaturpreis (2011)
Man Booker International Prize Finalist (2013)
Members
Reviews
Lists
Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 34
- Also by
- 3
- Members
- 1,559
- Popularity
- #16,537
- Rating
- 3.4
- Reviews
- 63
- ISBNs
- 190
- Languages
- 19
- Favorited
- 3
He walks across Switzerland, moving mostly at night to avoid being recognized, sleeping in the forest or in abandoned huts, scavenging as he moves along. And what of his wife and the two children he has left behind? The book alternates between Thomas, the husband and his wanderings and Astrid, the wife, and how she copes with his disappearance. Walking away from one’s obligations is interesting, but at the same time to abandon one’s family seems unnecessarily cruel so I found it difficult to be too sympathetic towards Thomas. At the same time, I found Astrid’s reluctance to accept his absence, her flimsy excuses to both herself and to others hard to understand. I wanted more, I wanted to understand the character’s motivations but the author kept us at a distance. His measured, cool prose gave us plenty of detail but nothing that truly satisfied my curiosity.
I suspect the author deliberately left his character’s motivations unfocused allowing the readers to ponder upon a variety of questions, is our current life the one we want, are our routines meant to bring comfort or to chain us down, can one ever really know another person? To the Back of Beyond is a perplexing, strange yet fascinating story that I enjoyed but I suspect there could be many readers who would simply want to toss this book against a wall.… (more)