Empire of Signs
James Wood: Joseph Roth, 4 March 1999
The String of Pearls
by Joseph Roth, translated by Michael Hofmann.
Granta, 224 pp., £12.99, May 1998,1 86207 087 3 Show More
by Joseph Roth, translated by Michael Hofmann.
Granta, 224 pp., £12.99, May 1998,
“... in the Twenties, when Roth started writing them, Alfred Polgar was the most celebrated exponent. Walter Benjamin called Polgar ‘the German master of the small form’. In 1935, writing in honour of Polgar’s 60th birthday, Roth said that he considered himself Polgar’s pupil: ‘He polishes the ordinary until it becomes extraordinary ... I have learned ... ”