Book review: ‘W. G. Sebald in Context’ by Uwe Schütte (ed.)

As something of a Sebald fanboy, I’ll happily read any book by or about the late W.G. Sebald.

W.G. Sebald in Context is a fascinating, outrageously priced collection of academic essays about Sebald’s life, work and influences. With a couple of exceptions, the essays were perfectly accessible to this non-academic, providing a nicely balanced collection. There were even occasional criticisms of Sebald.

I was particularly interested to read about Sebald’s admiration for non-conformists and eccentrics—a theme which, it had not occurred to me before, runs throughout his work. I was also pleased to see occasional referenced to Sebald’s humour, which I think tends to be overlooked.

This book probably won’t be of interest to the general reader, but is a must-read for all my fellow Sebald nerds.