Since the turn of the century, the New Yorker has mentioned the German writer W. G. Sebald on seventy-seven occasions and devoted six longform articles to his ouevre. During the same period, Sebald’s contemporary Alexander Kluge has been named in that magazine only twice: once in reference to his films, not his novels, and another time to mention one of his works of theory—and only in the online edition. Why have two writers of such similar gifts, similar tastes, and—in Germany—equal stature, found such different receptions in the English-speaking world?

It may simply be that Sebald, unlike