Telegrams of the Soul

By Peter Wortsman and Peter Altenberg

If it be permitted to speak of 'love at first sound, ' then that's what I experienced in my first encounter with this poet of prose. So said Thomas Mann of the work of PeterAltenberg. A virtuoso Fin-de-Si cle Viennese innovator of what he called the telegram style of writing, Altenberg's signature short prose straddles the line between the poetic and the prosaic, fiction and observation, harsh verity and whimsical vignette. Inspired by the prose poems of Charles Baudelaire and the Feuilleton--a light journalistic reflection of his day--Altenberg carved out a spare, strikingly modern aesthetic that speaks with an eerie prescience to our own impatient time. Peter Wortsman's new selection and translation reads like a sly lyrical wink from the turnof-the-century of the telegram to the turn-of-the-millennium of email.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0974968080
• ISBN13: 9780974968087
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: Archipelago Books
• Length: 147 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.7" x 8.9"