Ingram
Все книги издательства IngramFleeting Snow
Pavel Vilikovský's novella Fleeting Snow (Letmý sneh, 2014), describes the gradual loss of memory of the narrator's wife. The narrator reminisces about his past life with his wife and muses on issues ranging from human nature and the soul, to names and the phonetics of Slovak and indigenous American Indian languages, in an informal, humorous style whose lightness of touch belies the seriousness of his themes. The book's title refers to its recurring central motif, an avalanche whose inexorable descent cannot be stopped once the critical mass of snow has begun to roll, echoing the unstoppable process of memory loss. Five themes or storylines, intertwined in passages of varying lengths, are labelled with letters of the alphabet and numbers in a playful allusion to scholarly works and musical compositions. From one of Slovakia's most respected authors, this tender and sensitive look at an elderly couple dealing with illness might remind readers of Michael Haneke's awardwinning film, Amour.
Gaudeamus
Gaudeamus (Let us Rejoice) is the second autobiographical novel written by the author about his university years, and follows on from his Dairy of a ShortSighted Adolescent, described by Nicolas Lezard in the Guardian as 'Romania's Adrian Mole'. In this exuberant and touching portrait of youth, Eliade recounts the fictional version of his university years in late 1920's Bucharest. Marked by a burgeoning desire to 'suck out all the marrow of life', the protagonist throws himself into his studies; engaging his professors and peers in philosophical discourse, becoming one of the founding members of the Studen' s Union, and openingup the attic refuge of his isolated teenage years as a hotspot for political debate and romantic exploration. Readers will recognize in these pages the joy of a life about to blossom, of the search for knowledge and the desire for true love. Already an accomplished writer as a young man, this second look at the author's youth reveals a keen observer of human behaviour, a seeker of truth and spiritual fulfilment whose path would eventually lead him to become the ultimate historian of 20thcentury religions.
Under Pressure
A hard-hitting exploration of the realities of the Bosnian war through the eyes of a poet and veteran
The Harvest of Chronos
A historical novel which looks at Central Europe in the 16th century a territory plagued by ceaseless battles for supremacy between the Protestant political elite and the ruling Catholic Habsburg Monarchy. In this epic saga, history and fiction intertwine in wavelike fashion, producing a colourful portrait of the Renaissance; permeated by humanist attempts to resurrect antiquity through art, new scientific findings, and spirited philosophical and theological debates. Yet this was a time of intrigues, accusations of heresy, political betrayal, and burnings at the stake, an age which produced executioners, scapegoats and extraordinary individuals who were prepared to oppose the dominant beliefs and dare to believe in a new order.
Hair Everywhere
Hair Everywhere is the story of one family and how they manage to cope when the mother is diagnosed with cancer. It is a delicate tale that balances itself between the generations, revealing their strengths and weaknesses in times of trouble. It is also a story about how roles within a family can change when things become challenging, due to sickness or death, allowing some to grow and others to fade. Ultimately, this is a book about life; full of humour and absurdity as well as sadness, and set against an everyday background where the ordinary takes on new significance and colour. Tea Tulic’s debut novel is a brave glance at the human condition.
Quiet Flows the Una
Quiet Flows the Una is a semiautobiographical novel about a soldier suffering from the trauma of the Bosnian War, who suddenly finds himself wandering the lost and poetic corners of his memory after being hypnotized. The author, Faruk Sehic, joined a paramilitary unit for three years. He led 150 men into battle and was present at atrocities committed by both sides. Prior to the conflict he was an aspiring poet. His experiences shadow the novel as, with Nabokovian lushness, he reconstructs his childhood in prewar Yugoslavia, visiting his Grandmother's house and meandering the idyllic banks of the river Una. In Quiet Flows the Una Sehic has successfully put into art the complexities of his own, and countless others', posttraumatic stress disorder.
Diary of a ShortSighted Adolescent
Supposedly the work of a young Mircea Eliade, one of Romania's and Europe's greatest writers and intellectuals, Diary of a ShortSighted Adolescent provides a unique insight into the musings of an inchoate genius, in the form of a schoolboy's diary set against Bucharest in the 1920s. The shortsighted adolescent is a passionate reader who takes various cultural figures as models, trying to emulate both their lives or their works. The pupil protagonist is a poor student, who likes science and reads a lot of books, sometimes staying up all night to do so. At the age of fifteen, he decides to write a novel to demonstrate to his teachers that he is not as mediocre as all the other students. Is he really prepared to give up everything he holds dear for his art? As readable as The Catcher in the Rye, and as funny Adrian Mole, Diary of a ShortSighted Adolescent is a playful, pioneering and refreshing addition to the epistolary novel.
Byron and the Beauty
Byron and the Beauty, based on Lord Byron's biography, takes place during two weeks of October 1809, during his now famous sojourn in the Balkans. Besides being a great love story, this is also a novel about East and West, about Europe and the Balkans, about travel and friendship and cruelty.
'Byron’s account of his travels in the Albanian lands of the Ottoman Empire in October 1809 is fictionalised and immortalised in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage; Muharem Bazdulj adds to it a playful episode in which the great English romantic poet encounters an equally great Bosnian beauty. Byron may have been “mad, bad, and dangerous to know”, Zulejha is certainly his rival in this last. Imaginative and richly atmospheric, Byron and the Beauty is both a love story – a novel equivalent of one of Byron’s “Turkish Tales” – and a twentyfirst century account of an encounter between East and West in all its political implications.' Vesna Goldsworthy
Life Begins on Friday
A young man is found lying unconscious on the outskirts of Bucharest. No one knows who he is and everyone has a different theory about how he got there. The stories of the various characters unfold, each closely interwoven with the next, and outlining the features of what ultimately turns out to be the most important and most powerful character of all: the city of Bucharest itself. The novel covers the last 13 days of 1897 and culminates in a beautiful tableau of the future as imagined by the different characters. We might, in fact, say that it is we who inhabit their future. And so too does Dan Cretu, alias Dan Kretzu, the presentday journalist hurled back in time by some mysterious process for just long enough to allow us a wonderful glimpse into a remote, almost forgotten world, but one still very much alive in our hearts.
Dry Season
Gabriela Babniks novel Dry Season breaks the mould of what we usually expect from a writer from a small, Central European nation. With a global perspective, Babnik takes on the themes of racism, the role of women in modern society and the loneliness of the human condition.
Dry Season is a record of an unusual love affair. Anna is a 62yearold designer from Slovenia and Ismael is a 27yearold from Burkino Faso who was brought up on the street. What unites them is their loneliness, a tragic childhood and the dry hamartan season.