ALL ABOUT ABISH.(Walter Abish)(Critical Essay)

Walter Abish, though he has published relatively late and little, projects a distinct presence in contemporary letters, in part because of the black triangular eye patch that distinguishes his photograph on book jackets. His three novels, three collections of short stories, and lone book of poems have won a number of grants and awards (a MacArthur Foundation grant, the pen / Faulkner Award of 1981) and high praise from such disparate spirits as Harold Bloom, Richard Howard, and Wendy Lesser. Born in Vienna in 1931, Abish, with his mother and father, fled Hitler's Europe in 1940 for Shanghai, and in 1949 left what was shortly to become Mao's China for Israel. He came to New ...