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Walter Benjamin - Berlin Childhood Circa 1900

Publication Studio Hudson 2015 ISBN 9781935662136 Acqn 25271
Pb 12x17cm 326pp 32ills 1col 20
This fresh translation by Carl Skoggard of philosopher Walter Benjamin's (1892-1940) engaging
memoir remains faithful to the author's voice. Readers are offered glimpses of an anonymous
Berlin childhood, which might have been Benjamins, own, with recollections of an affluent Jewish
home in Berlin's West End, circa 1900. Focusing less on events and characters than on places
and things, Benjamin vividly re-imagines a young child's idiosyncratic private world. Written in the
months before and after the Nazi takeover of Germany, these recollections served as a coping
mechanism for Benjamin, a way of working through irrevocable loss.
This edition is illustrated with 30 black-and-white images and comes with a foldable colour map of
Berlin circa 1900 as well as a translator's essay and an extensive commentary.

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Walter Benjamin - The "Berlin Chronicle" Notices

Publication Studio Hudson 2015 ISBN 9781935662853 Acqn 25270
Pb 12x17cm 294pp 15ills 1col 20
A companion volume to Walter Benjamin's (1892-1940) memoir Berlin Childhood circa 1900, The
"Berlin Chronicle" Notices is now in a new translation by Carl Skoggard. The German-Jewish
philosopher, theorist and critic Walter Benjamin began to ruminate on his comfortable Berlin
childhood in 1932, not long before he would flee Germany for good to escape the Nazis. The
resulting "Berlin Chronicle" notices--40 in all--do not result in a linear narrative but instead remain
fragmentary recollections of Benjamin's young years, from his early childhood to the threshold of
adulthood. More generally, they are a series of profound explorations of memory and of the ways
memory relates to place. Rich in and of themselves, these notices greatly illuminate "Berlin
Childhood circa 1900," written by Benjamin months later. This translation, in a charming pocketsized format, comes with an extensive commentary, a historical map of Berlin and numerous
illustrations.

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Walter Benjamin Sonnets

Publication Studio Hudson 2015 ISBN 9781624620812 Acqn 25274
Pb 11x17cm 394pp 5ills 20
Walter Benjamin's sonnets, written to mourn his friend Fritz Heinle, constitute an important
though little-known part of the philosopher's literary achievement and a unique contribution to the
history of the German sonnet. Benjamin would add to their number over a decade, having begun
his project soon after the outbreak of World War I and the suicide of his friend. They were among
the writings that Benjamin, forced to flee France, entrusted to Georges Bataille in 1940 for
safekeeping. Here, for the first time, readers of English are offered translations of all 73 "Heinle
sonnets" along with the original German text and an extensive commentary. The Introductory
Essay examines the poems' biographical context as well as Benjamin's bold approach to sonnet
writing. These poems weave the deeply personal together with Benjamin's evolving religious and
philosophical perspective--shedding new light on the emergence of the man and the thinker.

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