Get Free Shipping on orders over $79
After Nature : Modern Library (Paperback) - W. G. Sebald

After Nature

By: W. G. Sebald

Paperback | 1 July 2003

At a Glance

Paperback


$50.75

or 4 interest-free payments of $12.69 with

 or 

Ships in 15 to 25 business days

After Nature, W. G. Sebald's first literary work, now translated into English by Michael Hamburger, explores the lives of three men connected by their restless questioning of humankind's place in the natural world. From the efforts of each, "an order arises, in places beautiful and comforting, though more cruel, too, than the previous state of ignorance." The first figure is the great German Re-naissance painter Matthias Grunewald. The second is the Enlightenment botanist-explorer Georg Steller, who accompanied Bering to the Arctic. The third is the author himself, who describes his wanderings among landscapes scarred by the wrecked certainties of previous ages.
After Nature introduces many of the themes that W. G. Sebald explored in his subsequent books. A haunting vision of the waxing and waning tides of birth and devastation that lie behind and before us, it confirms the author's position as one of the most profound and original writers of our time.

"From the Hardcover edition."

Industry Reviews
"A writer of almost unclassifiable originality, but whose voice we recognize as indispensable and central to our time." --The New York Times Book Review

"The language of After Nature, as conveyed in Michael Hamburger's flawlessly clear translation, is classically lucid. . . . It is [Sebald's] ability to enter diverse inner landscapes, and evoke, with an impartial empathy, entire geographies of experience, that gives [his] writing . . . its gravitas and its somber beauty." --The New York Times Book Review

"Accessible and moving . . . a wonderful introduction to this compelling and impressive writer, even for those who insist they do not like or understand poetry." --USA Today

"Here, we find the contours or outlines of his singular vision, the interconnecting, often uninterpreted threads of association that constitute a life, and meditations on his great themes of exile, memory, and loss." --The Washington Post

"The verse retains the Sebaldian virtues of rhetorical elegance and clarity, and sits well in English, as indeed does virtually every word he wrote. . . . [After Nature] is a work of great power and seriousness, fully worthy to stand beside the prose works of Sebald's last decade." --The New York Review of Books

More in Poetry

Japanese Haiku for Cat Lovers - William Scott Wilson

RRP $29.99

$26.75

11%
OFF
I don't Think I'm Straight : Queer poems to celebrate you - Isabella Dorta
Dropbear : Winner of the 2022 Stella Prize - Evelyn Araluen

RRP $24.99

$21.75

13%
OFF
Heroes : The myths of the Ancient Greek heroes retold - Stephen Fry
Complete Poems Of Banjo Paterson - A. B. Paterson

RRP $39.99

$31.75

21%
OFF
The Prophet : Penguin Classics Hardcover - Kahlil Gibran

RRP $32.99

$26.99

18%
OFF
The Spiritual Poems of Rumi : Translated by Nader Khalili - Rumi
The Iliad - Homer

Paperback

RRP $32.95

$26.99

18%
OFF
Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass : Poems - Lana Del Rey

RRP $34.99

$28.75

18%
OFF
You Hung the Moon : A Love Letter Between Mother and Child - Jessica Urlichs
Harmony : poems to find peace - Whitney Hanson

RRP $32.99

$26.99

18%
OFF
Dog Songs : Poems - Mary Oliver

RRP $29.99

$23.99

20%
OFF
The Complete Poems of Walt Whitman : Wordsworth Poetry Library - Walt Whitman
The Rot - Evelyn Araluen

Paperback

RRP $24.99

$21.75

13%
OFF
Best of Australian Poems 2025 : Best of Australian Poems - Nam Le
Beautiful Changelings - Maxine Beneba Clarke

RRP $29.99

$24.99

17%
OFF
The Lost Words : A Spell Book - Jackie Morris

RRP $49.99

$38.75

22%
OFF
The Divine Comedy : Leather-bound Classics - Dante Alighieri

RRP $49.99

$37.75

24%
OFF