Stigmata of Bliss (Hardback)

Klaus Merz is one of the most prominent, prolific, and versatile Swiss writers working today. Celebrated as a master of concise, condensed sentences, Merz brings depth and resonance to spare narratives with lyrical prose and striking images. Stigmata of Bliss brings together three of Merz’s critically acclaimed novellas, offering English readers the perfect introduction to his work.

Jacob Asleep introduces a family marked by illness, eccentricity, and a child’s death. In A Man’s Fate, a moment of inattention on a mountainous hike upends a teacher’s life and his understanding of mortality. And finally, The Argentine traces the fluctuations of memory and desire in a man’s journey around the world. In each novella, Merz takes readers on a profound and intimate journey. Read as a whole, the works complement, enrich, and echo each other.

‘The most generous writers give readers something to do, respecting their imaginative capabilities. The least generous ones explain too much, reflecting credit on themselves [. . .] Merz’s cunning, compressed prose asks us to dismiss the bulked-out rehashings of conventional prose fiction—it invites us to listen for the sounds of the inexpressible, the other side of life.’ —Ron Slate, Arts Fuse