Nicole Krauss reads Bruno Schulz's "Father's Last Escape," and discusses it with The New Yorker's fiction editor, Deborah Treisman. "Father's Last Escape" was published in the January 2, 1978, issue of The New Yorker and can be found in "The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories"; David Grossman wrote about Schulz in the June 8, 2009, issue. Nicole Krauss's most recent book, "Great House," was excerpted in the the magazine's 20 Under 40 issue.
This is the New Yorker fiction podcast from the New Yorker magazine.
I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at the New Yorker.
Each month, we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and discuss.
This month, we're going to hear father's last escape by Bruno Schultz.
At that time, my father was definitely dead.
He had been dying a number of times, always with some reservations that forced us to revise our attitude toward the fact of his death.
The story was chosen by Nicole Krauss, the author of the History of Love, part of which was published in the magazine in 2004.
Her most recent novel is Great House, which was a finalist for the 2010 National Book Award.
Part of great the Young Painters was published as part of our 20 under 40 series.
Hi, Nicole.
Hi.
So everybody I know whos an admirer of Bruno Schultz has his or her own story about how they first encountered his work.
David Grossman has written about this at length, and other people have, too.
Do you have a sort of Bruno Schultz origin story?
Well, I remember when it was, it was June of 1999, and I think I found my way to him because there was a theater company.
There is a theater company, Simon McBurney's theater company, Teatre Decomposite, whose productions I used to constantly go see in London.
And everyone was more amazing than the last.
And they did one that I couldn't see.
Somehow I wasn't able to go.
And it was called the street of crocodiles.