John Williams was born 100 years ago: he worked stubbornly against failure, only after his death was he rediscovered with his novel “Stoner” and today he is admired as one of the greats of American literature.
It’s not uncommon for the right book to come out at the wrong time. Of the Case of John Williams is more tragic. He was a great writer who wrote at the wrong time. None of his four novels was a bestseller during Williams’ lifetime. It was only in 2009, a decade and a half after his death, that the first European translation of his novel Stoner, first published in 1965, was published in Spain. Italy, the Netherlands and Great Britain followed three years later. In 2013 Bernhard Robben translated the book into German. Everywhere the work climbed to the top of the bestseller lists, the cultural world was enthusiastic and asked the obvious question: How could this man slip through our fingers for so long?