Lydia Davis (1) (1947–)
Author of The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis
About the Author
Lydia Davis is the author of several works of fiction. She is also a noted translator. She teaches at Bard College and lives in Port Ewen, New York. (Publisher Provided) Lydia Davis is a writer and translator. She is a professor of creative writing at the University at Albany, SUNY, and was a show more Lillian Vernon Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at New York University in 2012. Davis has published six collections of short stories, including The Thirteenth Woman and Other Stories (1976) and Break It Down (1986), a Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her most recent collection was Varieties of Disturbance, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2007 and a Finalist for the National Book Award. Davis' stories are acclaimed for their brevity and humor. Many are only one or two sentences. Her book Can't and Won't made the New York Times Bestseller List in 2014. She has also translated Proust, Flaubert, Blanchot, Foucault, Michel Leiris, Pierre Jean Jouve and other French writers, as well as the Dutch writer A.L. Snijders. In October 2003 Davis received a MacArthur Fellowship. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005. Davis was announced as the winner of the 2013 Man Booker International Prize on 22 May 2013. Davis won £60,000 as part of the biennial award. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Copyright by Theo Cote
Works by Lydia Davis
Essays Two: On Proust, Translation, Foreign Languages, and the City of Arles (2021) 145 copies, 1 review
Alfred Ollivant's Bob, Son of Battle: The Last Gray Dog of Kenmuir (Adapted by Lydia Davis) (2014) — Adapter — 51 copies, 1 review
Two American scenes: Our village / Lydia Davies. A journey on the Colorado River / Eliot Weinberger (2013) 32 copies
Associated Works
A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories (2015) — Foreword, some editions — 1,919 copies, 67 reviews
The Art of the Story: An International Anthology of Contemporary Short Stories (1999) — Contributor — 364 copies, 6 reviews
Object Lessons: The Paris Review Presents the Art of the Short Story (2012) — Contributor; Introduction — 230 copies, 9 reviews
McSweeney's Issue 6 (McSweeney's Quarterly Concern): We Now Know Who (2002) — Contributor — 204 copies, 5 reviews
A Convergence of Birds: Original Fiction and Poetry Inspired by Joseph Cornell (2001) — Contributor — 198 copies, 2 reviews
McSweeney's Issue 5 (McSweeney's Quarterly Concern): Sometimes Not Believing How Great This All Is (2012) — Contributor — 184 copies, 2 reviews
McSweeney's Issue 4: Trying, Trying, Trying, Trying, Trying (2010) — Contributor — 164 copies, 3 reviews
The Ecco Anthology of Contemporary American Short Fiction (2008) — Contributor — 130 copies, 1 review
Fakes: An Anthology of Pseudo-Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, "Found" Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts (2012) — Contributor — 72 copies, 4 reviews
McSweeney's Issue 42 (McSweeney's Quarterly Concern): Multiples (2013) — Contributor — 65 copies, 2 reviews
The Collected Poems: A Dual-Language Edition with Parallel Text (2013) — Translator, some editions — 58 copies
Fantastic Women: 18 Tales of the Surreal and the Sublime from Tin House (2011) — Contributor — 56 copies, 2 reviews
Lapham's Quarterly - Lines of Work: Volume IV, Number 2, Spring 2011 (2011) — Contributor — 30 copies, 2 reviews
Sulfur 6: The Literary Tri-Quarterly of the Whole Art. — Contributor — 2 copies
L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, Number 13, (Vol. 3, No. 3) — Contributor — 1 copy
Crawl Out Your Window #9 & 10 — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Davis, Lydia
- Birthdate
- 1947-07-15
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Northampton, Massachusetts, USA
- Places of residence
- Northampton, Massachusetts, USA
East Nassau, New York, USA
Port Ewen, New Jersey, USA
New York, New York, USA - Education
- Barnard College
- Occupations
- professor (Creative Writing ∙ Bard College)
short story writer
translator
novelist
book reviewer - Relationships
- Cote, Alan (husband)
Auster, Paul (former husband)
Auster, Daniel (son)
Cote, Theo (son) - Organizations
- Bard College
State University of New York, Albany - Awards and honors
- Lannan Literary Award ( [1998])
Whiting Writers' Award (1988)
National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (Fiction Translation)
French-American Foundation Translation Award (1993)
Guggenheim Fellowship
Fund for Poetry Award (1992) (show all 11)
Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
Ingram Merrill Foundation grant for fiction
MacArthur Fellowship (2003)
Man Booker International Prize (2013)
Paris Review Hadada Award (2016) - Short biography
- Lydia Davis, a professor of Creative Writing, has published several volumes of short stories and a novel, The End of the Story (1995). She has also translated classic works of French literature and philosophy, including Swann's Way by Marcel Proust and Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. She has won many major American writing awards and her work is included in several anthologies. In 1999, she was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government for her translations. She was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award and in 2013 won the Man Booker International Prize.
Members
Reviews
Our Strangers by Lydia Davis
Bob, Son of Battle, is a sheepdog so canny and careful of his flock, so deeply devoted to his master, James Moore, and so admired for his poise and wisdom by the residents of a small village in the rugged mountains of England's North Country, that young though he is, he is already known as Owd Bob. In a recent contest, Bob has proved himself a matchless sheepdog, and if he wins the trophy two more times, he'll be seen as equal to the legendary sheepdogs of yore.
But Bob has a real rival: Red Wull, with his docked tail and bristling yellow fur, a ferocious creature, just like his diminutive master, Adam McAdam, a lonely Scot, estranged not only from his English neighbors but from his son, David. McAdam just can't stop belittling this strapping young man, all the more so since David began courting Moore's beautiful daughter Maggie. But what McAdam really wants is for his beloved Wullie to wrest the prize from Bob once and for all.
The story takes a darker turn when a troubling new threat to the local flocks emerges. A dog has gone rogue, sneaking out at night to feast on the sheep he is bound to protect. Again and again, new sheep fall prey to this relentless predator; again and again, he slips away undetected. This master hunter can only be among the boldest and sharpest of dogs . . .
Here the celebrated author and translator Lydia Davis, who first read and loved this exciting story as a child, has rendered the challenging idioms of the original into fluent and graceful English of our day, making this tale of rival dogs and rival families and the shadowy terrain between Good and Bad accessible and appealing to readers.… (more)
But Bob has a real rival: Red Wull, with his docked tail and bristling yellow fur, a ferocious creature, just like his diminutive master, Adam McAdam, a lonely Scot, estranged not only from his English neighbors but from his son, David. McAdam just can't stop belittling this strapping young man, all the more so since David began courting Moore's beautiful daughter Maggie. But what McAdam really wants is for his beloved Wullie to wrest the prize from Bob once and for all.
The story takes a darker turn when a troubling new threat to the local flocks emerges. A dog has gone rogue, sneaking out at night to feast on the sheep he is bound to protect. Again and again, new sheep fall prey to this relentless predator; again and again, he slips away undetected. This master hunter can only be among the boldest and sharpest of dogs . . .
Here the celebrated author and translator Lydia Davis, who first read and loved this exciting story as a child, has rendered the challenging idioms of the original into fluent and graceful English of our day, making this tale of rival dogs and rival families and the shadowy terrain between Good and Bad accessible and appealing to readers.… (more)
Lists
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 35
- Also by
- 44
- Members
- 4,484
- Popularity
- #5,589
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 119
- ISBNs
- 147
- Languages
- 14
- Favorited
- 9
