I Am the Brother of XX | Fleur Jaeggy

Fleur Jaeggy is often noted for her terse and telegraphic style, which somehow brews up a profound paradox that seems bent on haunting the reader: despite a sort of zero-at-the-bone baseline, her fiction is weirdly also incredibly moving. How does she do it? No one knows. But here, in her newest collection, I Am the Brother of XX, she does it again. Like a magician or a master criminal, who can say how she gets away with it, but whether the stories involve famous writers (Calvino, Ingeborg Bachmann, Joseph Brodsky) or baronesses or 13th-century visionaries or tormented siblings bred up in elite Swiss boarding schools, they somehow steal your heart. And they don’t rest at that, but endlessly disturb your mind.

About the Author

Fleur Jaeggy is a Swiss author born on July 31, 1940, in Zürich2. She is known for writing in Italian despite her Swiss origins and has gained international recognition for her unique literary style. Jaeggy's works have been translated into over twenty languages3. Her novel "Proleterka" was named a Best Book of the Year by The Times Literary Supplement upon its US publication23. Another notable work, "Sweet Days of Discipline," won the Premio Bagutta and the Premio Speciale Rapallo.

Critics have praised her work for its originality and power. Susan Sontag called her "a wonderful, brilliant, savage writer," while Joseph Brodsky described her pen as "an engraver's needle depicting roots, twigs, and branches of the tree of madness".