Documentation Swiss literatures

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[ book tip by Literatur Schweiz ] Peter Bichsel is a master of short prose forms. His probably most successful work and one of the most translated books of Swiss German-language literature, his «Stories for Children», was published in 19969 and early on in the author’s career. It is made up of short narrations which are only seemingly meant for children – or certainly not only. Some of the volume’s stories could be classified as national folkstories, should such a counterpart to the folksong exist, like the tale entitled «There Is No Such Place As America» (which was convincingly enacted as a rock ballade by the famous Swiss Band «Züri West») or the story of the man who wants to encircle the globe in as straight a line as possible.

Bichsel’s children’s stories are distinguished by their playfulness and seeming simplicity. The play with language itself becomes the topic of some of the stories. When the old man in «A Table Is A Table» decides that everything has to change, but, as nothing happens, begins to swap words around, calling the table «carpet», we are faced with wordplay in the sense of the late Ludwig Wittgenstein. Bichsel invokes philosophical questions in his «Stories for Children»: how do I know what I believe to know? What do I actually mean when I say something? How do I know that others understand what I’m saying?

(Rudolf Probst, trans. by Simon Froehling)

[ Favourite quote ] «But this isn’t a funny story. It started sad and came to a sad end. The old man in the gray coat couldn’t understand the people anymore, this wasn’t so bad. It was worse that they couldn’t understand him anymore. And that’s why he didn’t talk anymore.»

[ book info ] Bichsel, Peter: Stories for Children. (Kindergeschichten). (original language: Englisch) Kindergeschichten. Calder Publications Ltd, Richmond, 1971 (1969). ISBN: 978-0-7145-0689-3.
Translated from German by Michael Hamburger