Peter Wortsman
Personal Information
Description
Dubbed a "20th-century Brother Grimm” (Bloomsbury Review) and "a delinquent Hans Christian Andersen” (by playwright Mark O=Donnell), Peter Wortsman is the author of a book of short fiction, A Modern Way To Die (Fromm, 1991), two stage plays, "The Tattooed Man Tells All” (2000) and “Burning Words,” (2004), and an artists’ book, “it-t=i,” (Here and Now Press, 2005) on which he collaborated with his brother, the artist Harold Wortsman. Also a critically acclaimed translator from the German, his translations include Posthumous Papers of a Living Author, by Robert Musil, now in its third edition (Eridanos, 1988; Penguin 20th-Century Classics, 1995; Archipelago Books, 2006); Telegrams of the Soul: Selected Prose of Peter Altenberg (Archipelago, 2005) and Travel Pictures, by Heinrich Heine (forthcoming from Archipelago Books). He is the recipient of the Beard’s Fund Short Story Award and fellowships from the Fulbright and Thomas J. Watson Foundations.
Books
Selected Tales of the Brothers Grimm
Cold earth wanderers
Cold Earth Wanderers by Peter Wortsman is a science fiction novel set in a completely built up world where vertical values are prized while all horizontal tendencies are suspect. 16 year old Elgin Marble has had enough of a world that is decidedly vertical. When his father, an upstanding elevator man, is marked for disposal, Elgin joins an underground group called the Crabs. This illicit group tirelessly digs tunnels in the hope of one day breaking through to the outside. But who are the Crabs, and can they be trusted? His mother, Ellen, is worried sick about her son. The ruthless school principal, Mr. Orion, warns her that Elgin is in big trouble and blackmails her for sexual favors. Together they go underground to search for the boy. Meanwhile, agents of the IVT (Institute for Vertical Thinking) are also hot on his trail, and the Crabs are feeling the heat.