— William S. Wilson. Why I Don’t Write Like Franz Kafka. New York : The Ecco Press, [1977].
— —. Γιατι Δεν Γραφω Σαν Τον Φραντς Καφκα. Athens : Ekdoseis Apopeira, 1994. Translated by Sonia Salimpha, Stratos Kakadellēs. OCLC: 610587751 (Johns Hopkins).
William S. Wilson (1932–2016) was a friend for more than twenty-five years. I esteem his collection of stories and included it in my Grolier Club show for the beauty and clarity of his prose : and because several of the stories push at the boundaries of what we understand as science fiction in the same way that some of the work of Borges does. “Desire” is a (quietly) spectacular example of what the short story can accomplish.
Bill was not a prolific writer. He published one novel, Birthplace, and a long stream of essays on art, literature, and philosophical topics. He was an exacting writer whose work demands of the reader the same rigor and sheer energy of attention with which he wrote and thought. And because of where and he lived in Chelsea, he knew everyone in the New Yotk art scene of the Sixties and Seventies, not as a celebrity hanger-on but as an intelligent observer. There is a fascinating transcript of Jonathan D. Katz’s 2012 interviews with Bill at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.
One sparkling memory from 1994 stands out among all our exchanges. I dropped in to visit him on 25th street and he said, I too have been published in Athens. He showed me a copy of his story collection, and all the history of philosophy was contained in his smile.
I remembered this some months ago, and now I have a copy of the book, thanks to a friend who set a family member on a quest through all the bookshops of Athens. It is locally scarce in the U.S. I don’t read Greek (ancient or modern) beyond the alphabet, but I am gratified to have this additional reminder of my friend Bill Wilson.