Lydia Davis was chosen as a 2003 MacArthur Fellow. This recognition is given to individuals who show outstanding talent and dedication in their fields of expertise.
One of the Village Voice's 25 Favorite Books and the ALA's 2002 Notable Books, this collection of 56 stories is like nothing else. By which we mean: there is nothing else like this. Lydia Davis makes simple things complicated and complicated things simple, and it is all amazing to behold.
Davis has received the Whiting Writer's Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the French Insigna of the Order of Arts and Letters. She is the author of a novel, The End of the Story, and two collections of short stories, Break It Down and Almost No Memory. Davis has also just finished a new translation of Marcel Proust's Swann's Way.
"With her deadpan delivery and shaggy-dog profundities, Davis might be thought of as an erudite stand-up comedian, one who works philosophers' conferences instead of nightclubs."
-The New York Times
"Davis turns philosophical snippets into fiction, with moving results. It is rare for a writer to challenge the tradition of storytelling and still be a pleasure to read. Davis' stories are as clear as children's books and somehow inevitable, as if she has written down what we were all on the verge of thinking ourselves."
-Time Magazine
"Eclectic and astute, Davis continues to find new ways to tell us the things we need to know."
-Publishers Weekly
