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A Novel
by Peter Stamm
Given a second chance with an old love, a coolly detached archivist questions the life he could have had, and whether it's not too late to live it.
Forty years ago—almost a lifetime—he confessed his love to a classmate and close friend, Franziska. Now, living in his late mother's house with the obsolete archive of the newspaper he once worked for, he looks back on days spent poring over files and clippings, increasingly withdrawn from the world. His occasional relationships never amounted to anything, and the memory of Franziska—who became pop singer Fabienne—continues to haunt him as she appears in the media.
When the two cross paths again, the possibility of a different life feels achingly real. But should he risk the comfort of his ordered existence for a romance that might never match what he imagined?
A subtle, mesmerizing portrait of late-blooming passion, The Archive of Feelings showcases Peter Stamm at his best.
"[G]orgeous...constructed with subtlety and nuance and the sort of prose that seems to simply disappear as you read, like footsteps on a beach. An understated but profound and even enigmatic novel." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[A]ffecting...Despite a slow start, the looming promise of these old friends being reunited energizes the action, and Stamm delivers a striking and earnest conclusion. Fans of the author will love this efficient and wistful work." —Publishers Weekly
This information about The Archive of Feelings was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Peter Stamm is the author of the novels The Sweet Indifference of the World, To the Back of Beyond, All Days Are Night, Seven Years, On a Day Like This, Unformed Landscape, and Agnes, and the short-story collections We're Flying and In Strange Gardens and Other Stories. His award-winning books have been translated into more than forty languages. For his entire body of work and his accomplishments in fiction, he was short-listed for the Man Booker International Prize in 2013, and in 2014 he won the prestigious Friedrich Hölderlin Prize. He lives in Switzerland.
Michael Hofmann has translated the work of Gottfried Benn, Hans Fallada, Franz Kafka, Joseph Roth, and many others. In 2012 he was awarded the Thornton Wilder Prize for Translation by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His One Lark, One Horse: Poems was published in 2019, Where Have You Been? Selected Essays in 2014, and Selected Poems in 2009. He lives in Florida and London.
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