![]() Novels, on the other hand, are narrow, isolating and built around very specific, individual experiences - they focus on a unique world view. ![]() ![]() The essay, focused on the German writer Johan Peter Hebel, stakes a bold claim early on: “…that the art of storytelling is dying out.”īenjamin builds a compelling case that stories are, generally speaking, timeless, universal and built around shared experiences - they help us make sense of and navigate life. The heart of the book is a short, powerful essay exploring the difference between storytelling and novels.īenjamin, a Jewish philosopher and critic, wrote it in 1936 just four years before taking his own life to avoid being handed over to the Nazis. A recent advertisement for a storytelling seminar for corporate writers made me think of it again, so I pulled it out and blew the dust off and read it from cover to cover. I read most of it March, then got COVID, then let it get buried under my TBR pile. That’s why, when I stumbled across The Storyteller Essays, by Walter Benjamin, in a cool little bookstore in DC (shout out to Bridge Street books) earlier this year, I picked it up. ![]() ![]() As a writer-creative fiction and corporate communication- I’m naturally interested in the art and application of storytelling. ![]()
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