Dedalus aug 2022 (5 Ergebnisse)

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - A collection of short stories by one of the Arab world's most accomplished and acclaimed writers. A grandmother who takes on a thief trying to seduce her daughters. A guard who fantasises about killing his general while locked in battle with a non-existent enemy. A film script about Libya's traffic problems improvised at a workshop. A woman's letter from her old school, which is now a makeshift refugee camp. A cow straying into a field, breaking an age-old truce between warring factions. The eight stories of Catalogue of a Private Life feel like oft-recounted folktales, where the ordinary has been softly twisted several degrees. Najwa Bin Shatwan navigates the tensions between loyalty and betrayal, ambition and regret, and tenderness and cruelty to weave a portrait of family, war and nation against a stark backdrop of the completely absurd. …

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - The Runes Have Been Cast is a black comedy of darkest hue about academic and literary life set in Oxford and St Andrews in the early 60s. A tin of alphabet spaghetti brought about Lancelyn's first encounter with the apparently supernatural. Unfortunately it was not to be his last. Runes, ghosts and spaghetti apart, there is much for Lancelyn to be afraid of: the future, women, Critical Theory, sex romps, The Times' crossword puzzle, succubi and creative writing classes. The pages of The Runes Have Been Cast are haunted by M.R. James, Thomas de Quincey, Mr. Raven, St. Ignatius of Loyola, Iron Foot Jack, J.R.R. Tolkien and an anonymous tramp. 'I do not think that I can have read a novel which makes so many references to actual works that I have never heard off. With a fairly complex plot, ghosts popping in and out, strange but colourful academics, much mirth and mockery, two young men too full of themselves, a rampaging sex goddess, lots of interesting books and authors, intertextuality galore, the idea of God as a novelist, immersive literature and Tolkien and his bloody elves, this book is a thoroughly enjoyable read.' -John Alvey in The Modern Novel.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - 'If a world can be seen in a grain of sand, then surely phobia can be found in a handful of dust, or so contends obsessed British housewife Marcia, as she does endless battle with dandruff, the carapaces of roaches, grease, rust, grit, the whole panoply of household detritus. Terrorized by the imminent arrival of her coffee-morning ladies, she vacuums the carpet, only to be bested by the spirit Mucor, whose Latin name embodies all elements of slime and grime and who tries to entice her into the kingdom of filth over which he rules. To avoid him she enters the dazzling cleanliness of the Pieter de Hooch canvas hanging on her wall, invoking de Hooch and a raft of other geniuses- Darwin, Teilhard de Chardin, Leonardo, Blake, Dostoyevski, even Jesus to assist her. The coffee-morning ladies arrive; she half-listens to their prattle while impatiently waiting for them to leave so she can attack the dishes they have dirtied. Soon her husband, whom she suspects of having an affair with one of the ladies, will come home; how can she defeat Mucor before that moment The solution is in perfect harmony with this astonishing work of imagination and erudition.' Kirkus Reviews.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Prague 1938 is a coming-of-age novel, or a novel of lost illusions, set in a Czechoslovakia threatened with incorporation into the Third Reich. Centred on the 15 year old Guido Hayek, it traces his infatuation with Leah Meisel, an orphaned Jewish girl several years older than him who, he discovers, is part of a street-gang of con-artists and petty thieves. His initiation into their world occurs when Leah challenges him to steal a ring from a jewellers. Soon he is enmeshed. Guido is aware that Leah's grandfather Ezra Meisel, an antiques dealer, has plans to emigrate to Odessa with her, particularly as the Sudeten Crisis comes to a head. Guido's own crisis comes to a head when he discovers that his father Emil, an art-dealer whom he adores, is bent on cheating old Meisel, and he must choose between aiding the Meisels or helping his own half-sister, the 'degenerate' artist Katya, who also has the 'taint' of Jewish blood, emigrate to the New World. 'The streets of Prague take centre stage in this smorgasbord of a novel: coming-of-age, familial upheaval, political unrest, artistic intrigue, rag order existence, the folly of youthful infatuation, the warp and woof of flight to a new world; and all of it played out under the looming shadow of war, of a world approaching the precipice. This is elegant, vibrant and read-on storytelling at its very best.' - Alan McMonagle '[Dara Kavanagh] has written a vivid coming-of-age morality tale set in pre-WWII Prague that holds a magic mirror up to our own strange and disrupted times' - Paul Lynch.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - The life of Kieran Sheridan LeFanu, a young Dublin advertising agency director, is abruptly upended when he is the sole survivor of a gruesome car crash. In the aftermath, he develops a form of Cotard's Syndrome, the belief that he is dead and possibly experiencing the drawn-out delirium of a mind hovering between consciousness and extinction. He meets and loves the enchanting and enigmatic Aoife and struggles to differentiate between memory, fantasy, and reality, with bizarre and inexplicable encounters where he is attacked by strangers, pursued by a vicious stalker and transported to a haunting afterlife dimension. In a final showdown, he faces real and paranormal foes and is given an astounding revelation. LeFanu's Angel is a novel full of excitement, mystery and the unexpected. It is a literary delight set in historic and contemporary Dublin, with its vibrant business and social life, and hidden underworld of vice and crime. 'Keogh does an excellent job of both channelling/mocking the Irish Gothic novel tradition, telling a good story of good (relatively) versus evil, showing the corruption and dark side of modern-day Ireland and keeping us guessing to the end where it is all going to end up.' John Alvey in The Modern Novel 'Most importantly, Keogh tells a good story - both at the level of the individual episodes as well as the larger stories - and tells them well, making for a thoroughly engaging novel and enjoyable read.' M.A. Orthofer in The Complete Review.…