Rivers of the Unspoilt World
2022
First Published
3.28
Average Rating
214
Number of Pages
Described as one of the UK's finest short story writers, Constantine intricately interweaves fictional characters and events with the real to create new ways of seeing and connecting our past, present and possible futures. With extraordinary patience and precision, these stories centre on moments, conversations, meetings that feel like small details picked out from a larger tapestry. From the academic in Paris, researching the atrocities of the fall of 1871 Paris Commune, to the young biographer who tries to befriend the ailing poet Hölderlin, the characters in this collection are united by an urge for connection, a desire to better know themselves - and the world around them - to counteract a loss of hope and belonging.
Avg Rating
3.28
Number of Ratings
18
5 STARS
6%
4 STARS
39%
3 STARS
33%
2 STARS
22%
1 STARS
0%
goodreads
Author
David Constantine
Author · 12 books
Born in 1944, David Constantine worked for thirty years as a university teacher of German language and literature. He has published several volumes of poetry, most recently, Nine Fathom Deep (2009). He is a translator of Hölderlin, Brecht, Goethe, Kleist, Michaux and Jaccottet. In 2003 his translation of Hans Magnus Enzensberger's Lighter Than Air won the Corneliu M Popescu Prize for European Poetry Translation. His translation of Goethe's Faust, Part I was published by Penguin in 2005; Part II in April 2009. He is also author of one novel, Davies, and Fields of Fire: A Life of Sir William Hamilton. His four short story collections are Back at the Spike, the highly acclaimed Under the Dam (Comma, 2005), and The Shieling (Comma, 2009), which was shortlisted for the 2010 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. Constantine's story 'Tea at the Midland' won the BBC National Short Story Award 2010, and won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award in 2013 for the collection (Comma Press, 2012). He lives in Oxford where, for ten years, he edited Modern Poetry in Translation with his wife Helen (until 2011). David's short story 'In Another Country' has been adapted into 45 Years - a major Film4-funded feature film, directed by Andrew Haigh and starring Tom Courtenay & Charlotte Rampling. This film won two silver bear awards at the Berlinale International Film festival in February 2015. David is also the author of the forthcoming novel, released by Comma Press, The Life-Writer.
