The Goalkeeper's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick

WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE

'Portrays the breakdown of a murderer in ways that recall Camus' The Stranger' The New York Times

Joseph Bloch, a once-famous goalkeeper turned construction worker, commits a random murder without thought or regret. As he wanders the streets, from hotel to bar, cinema to tram stop, experiencing strange and violent encounters on the way, he finds himself, and everything around him, disintegrating. Told in spare and icy prose, Peter Handke's masterpiece of alienation takes apart our ideas of humanity and reality itself.

'A Kafkaesque crime novel' Los Angeles Times

Translated by Michael Roloff

The author:

Peter Handke was born in Griffen, Austria, in 1942. A novelist, playwright and translator, he is the author of such acclaimed works as The Moravian Night, A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick and Repetition. The recipient of multiple literary awards, including the Franz Kafka Prize and the International Ibsen Award, Handke is also a filmmaker. He wrote and directed adaptations of his novels The Left-Handed Woman and Absence, and co-wrote the screenplays for Wim Wenders' Wrong Movie and Wings of Desire. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2019.