Raymond Carver

Alternate-cover edition can be found here In his second collection, Carver establishes his reputation as one of the most celebrated and beloved short-story writers in American literature—a haunting meditation on love, loss, and companionship, and finding one’s way through the dark.

By the time of his early death in 1988, Raymond Carver had established himself as one of the greatest practitioners of the American short story, a writer who had not only found his own voice but imprinted it in the imaginations of thousands of readers. 'Where I'm Calling From', his last collection, encompasses classic stories from 'Cathedral', 'What We Talk About When We Talk About Love' and earlier Carver volumes, along with seven new works previosly unpublished in book form. Together, these 37 stories give us a superb overview of Carver's life work and show us why he was so widely imitated but never equaled.

Beginners contains Carver's original manuscripts for his classic short-story collection, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, which his ruthless editor, Gordon Lish, reduced by more than 50 per cent before publication. Fascinating, with some stories weighted entirely differently, the original texts reveal Carver to be a more humane writer than he is usually credited with being.

A Small, Good Thing is an award winning short story by American author Raymond Carver. It was included in the story collection Cathedral, published in 1983.

Raymond Carver’s third collection of stories, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, including the canonical titular story about blindness and learning to enter the very different world of another. It was morning in America when Raymond Carver's Cathedral came out in 1983, but the characters in this dry collection of short stories from the forgotten corners of land of opportunity didn't receive much sunlight. Nothing much happens to the subjects of Carver's fiction, which is precisely why they are so harrowing: nothingness is a daunting presence to overcome. And rarely do they prevail, but the loneliness and quiet struggle the characters endure provide fertile ground for literary triumph, particularly in the hands of Carver, who was perhaps in his best form with this effort. Raymond Carver (1938-1988) was an author who rejected the more experimental fiction of the 60s and 70s. He pioneered a precisionist realism reinventing the American short story during the eighties, heading the line of so-called "dirty realists" or "K-mart realists". They are stories of banal lives that turn on a seemingly insignificant detail. Carver writes with meticulous economy, suddenly bringing a life into focus in a similar way to the paintings of Edward Hopper. As well as being a master of the short story, he was an accomplished poet publishing several highly acclaimed volumes.

With this, his first collection, Carver breathed new life into the short story. In the pared-down style that has since become his hallmark, Carver showed us how humour and tragedy dwelt in the hearts of ordinary people, and won a readership that grew with every subsequent brilliant collection of stories, poems and essays that appeared in the last eleven years of his life.

En poco más de diez años de intenso trabajo literario, los que van desde que dejó atrás el alcoholismo hasta su temprana muerte, Raymond Carver forjó una obra de primerísima magnitud. Sus cuentos fueron celebrados internacionalmente y le valieron el calificativo de «Chéjov americano», pero, en paralelo a esa carrera como narrador, a lo largo de los años ochenta del pasado siglo también fue escribiendo varios poemarios. De hecho, él mismo dijo: «Empecé como poeta. Lo primero que publiqué fue un poema. De modo que supongo que me gustaría que en mi lápida pusiese “Poeta, cuentista y ocasional ensayista”, en ese orden.» Y es que los poemarios de Carver aquí reunidos –cinco libros, tres publicados en vida, uno póstumo y un quinto que reunía sus inéditos– permiten constatar que su poesía no fue ni mucho menos un ejercicio menor, un capricho, una producción subsidiaria o marginal. Sus versos forman parte sustancial de su corpus literario, y no solo ayudan a construir un retrato completo de quien los escribió, sino que son un complemento imprescindible para cualquier lector de sus cuentos. Los más de trescientos poemas de este volumen –que incorpora un emotivo prólogo de su viuda, la escritora Tess Gallagher– están arraigados a la vida, a lo cotidiano, y demuestran que Carver no fue solo un narrador superdotado, sino también un poeta profundo y emocionante, que sabía explorar los instantes de felicidad o desolación, las flaquezas y la dignidad de los seres humanos, las escurridizas epifanías que asoman en las vidas más anodinas. Sus versos atrapan la intimidad sin pompa ni excesos retóricos, y muestran una empática capacidad de comprensión hacia sus semejantes que lo conecta con su amado Chéjov.

L'opera più importante, amata e celebrata di Raymond Carver. 55.000 copie vendute. Raymond Carver è unanimemente riconosciuto come un classico della letteratura americana del Novecento. Le sue storie di esistenze normali, popolate da personaggi comuni e raccontate in uno stile limpido e potente, hanno conquistato nel corso degli anni i lettori di tutto il mondo e ispirato un'intera generazione di scrittori. "Cattedrale" è considerato il suo capolavoro: dodici racconti di straordinaria intensità emotiva ambientati in sale d'aspetto, vagoni di treno, salotti modesti e corsie d'ospedale, alcuni dei quali sono stati trasposti in "America Oggi", il film di Robert Altman vincitore del Leone d'Oro a Venezia.

So Much Water, So Close to Home is a short story by American author Raymond Carver. Cover: © Camille Chan

These seven stories were the last that Carver wrote. Among them is one of his longest, "Errand", in which he imagines the death of Chekhov, a writer Carver hugely admired and to whose work his own was often compared. This fine story suggests that the greatest of modern short-story writers may, in the year before his untimely death, have been flexing his muscles for a longer work.

Raymond Carver había ya ingresado en ese parnaso donde la obra de un escritor está completa. Al parecer, todo lo que importaba había sido ya publicado. Pero ahora, años después de su muerte, la viuda de Carver, escritora y poeta, ha encontrado y editado cinco relatos. Relatos espléndidos, estremecedores, con hombres que han dejado de beber y están en la línea divisoria entre dos vidas, con parejas que ya no se aman y empiezan a mirarse como extraños, con un escritor que ha abandonado a su mujer y está intentando empezar a escribir otra vez a partir de «ese vacío que es el comienzo de todas las cosas».