Kim Herzinger

Kim Herzinger is a critic who writes on minimalism and other contemporary literary phenomena, a Pushcart Prize–winning writer of fiction, and the editor of two other Donald Barthelme collections, Not–Knowing and The Teachings of Don B. He taught at the University of Southern Mississippi and now owns and operates Left Bank Books in New York City."

Books

Flying to America

45 More Stories

Donald Barthelme was one of the most influential and inventive writers of the 20th century. In this volume of unpublished and previously uncollected stories, he transforms the absurd and strange into the real in his usual epiphanic, engaging, and richly textured style. The stories delve further into themes that often interested Barthelme: the perils of the unfulfilled existence; the relationships between politics, art, sex, and life; and the importance of continuing to ask questions even though we are unable to learn the answers. This collection will delight both old fans and new readers.

Not-Knowing

The Essays and Interviews

The wildly varied essays in Not–Knowing combine to form a posthumous manifesto of one of America's masters of literary experiment. Here are Barthelme's thoughts on writing (his own and others); his observations on art, architecture, film, and city life; interviews, including two previously unpublished; and meditations on everything from Superman III to the art of rendering "Melancholy Baby" on jazz banjolele. This is a rich and eclectic selection of work by the man Robert Coover has called "one of the great citizens of contemporary world letters."