DONALD BARTHELME

An acknowledged master of the short story as well as a uniquely gifted novelist, Donald Barthelme is widely considered one of America’s most innovative writers. He has had more influence on the American short story, critics say, than anyone since Ernest Hemingway. Indeed, according to Peter S. Prescott of Newsweek, he “attempts to refurbish our language, to rescue it from its clichés, from its cultural burden. On reading Barthelme’s fiction, Anne Tyler writes, “Looking up from the page, you’ll have undergone a peculiar alteration of vision. Life, for a while, will hold more promise.”

Forty Stories contains some of Barthelme’s most famous pieces, including At the Tolstoy Museum, Sentence, and Porcupines at the University, as well as nine recent stories previously uncollected. The author of nine story collections and three novels, including Paradise (1986), Donald Barthelme is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and other magazines, and is one of the most honored writers of our time. People magazine predicts: “if any contemporary writing survives into the next century, Barthelme’s prickly, hilarious stories will be there.”