Against the Country is a gift for fans of Southern Gothic and metafiction alike. Set in the Virginia pines, and overrun with failed parents, racist sex offenders, cast-off priests, and suicidal chickens, this novel challenges literary convention even as it attacks our national myth — that the rural naturally engenders good, while the urban breeds an inevitable sin.In a voice both perfectly American and utterly new, Metcalf introduces the reader to Goochland County, Virginia — a land of stubborn soil, voracious insects, lackluster farms, and horrifying trees — and details one family’s pitiful struggle to survive there. Eventually it becomes clear that Goochland is not merely the author’s setting; it is a growing, throbbing menace that warps and scars every one of his characters’ lives.Equal parts fiery criticism and icy farce, Against the Country is the most hilarious sermon one is likely to hear on the subject of our native soil, and the starkest celebration of the language our land produced. The result is a literary tour de force that raises the question: Was there ever a narrator, in all our literature, so precise, so far-reaching, so eloquently misanthropic, as the one encountered here?

In this spellbinding novel, written in Albania and smuggled into France a few pages at a time in the 1980s, Ismail Kadare denounces with rare force the machinery of a dictatorial regime, drawing us back to the ancient roots of tyranny in Western Civilization. During the waning years of Communism, a young worker for the Albanian state-controlled media agency narrates the story of his ill-fated love for the daughter of a high-ranking official. When he witness the ghostly image of Agamemnon-the Ancient Greek king who sacrificed his own daughter for reasons of State-on the reviewing stand during a May Day celebration, he begins to suspect the full catastrophe of his devotion. Also included are "The Blinding Order," a parable of the Ottoman Empire about the uses of terror in authoritarian regimes, and "The Great Wall," a chilling duet between a Chinese official and a soldier in the invading army of the Tamerlane.About the Author: Ismail Kadare is acclaimed worldwide as one of the most important writers of our time. He lives in Paris and Tirana.

William Gaddis published four novels during his lifetime, immense and complex books that helped inaugurate a new movement in American letters. Now comes his final work of fiction, a subtle, concentrated culmination of his art and ideas. For more than fifty years Gaddis collected notes for a book about the mechanization of the arts, told by way of a social history of the player piano in America. In the years before his death in 1998, he distilled the whole mass into a fiction, a dramatic monologue by an elderly man with a terminal illness. Continuing Gaddis's career-long reflection on those aspects of corporate technological culture that are uniquely destructive of the arts, Agape Agape is a stunning achievement from one of the indisputable masters of postwar American fiction.

What if the end of man is not caused by some cataclysmic event, but by the nature of humans themselves? In Age of Blight, a young scientist's harsh and unnecessary experiments on monkeys are recorded for posterity; children are replaced by their doppelgangers, which emerge like flowers in their backyards; and two men standing on opposing cliff faces bear witness to each other's terrifying ends.Age of Blight explores a kind of post-future, in which the human race is finally abandoned to the end of its history. Muslim's poetic vignettes explore the nature of dystopia itself, often to darkly humorous effect, as when the spirit of Laika (the Russian space dog that perished on Sputnik 2) tries to befriend a satellite, or when Beth, the narrator's older sister, returns from the dead. The collection is illustrated throughout by the charcoal drawings of RISD artist Alessandra Hogan.In haunting and precise prose, Kristine Ong Muslim posits that humanity's downfall will be both easily preventable and terrifyingly inevitable, for it depends on only one thing: human nature.

From Publishers WeeklyHarsh, unflinching and powerful, Coetzee's (Waiting for the Barbarians) new novel is a cry of moral outrage at the legacy that apartheid has created in South Africa. In scenes of stunning ferocity, he depicts the unequal warfare waging between the two races, a conflict in which the balance of power is slowly shifting. An elderly woman's letters to her daughter in America make up the narrative. Near death from rapidly advancing cancer, Cape Town resident Mrs. Curren is a retired university professor and political liberal who has always considered herself a "good person" in deploring the government's obfuscatory and brutal policies, though she has been insulated from the barbarism they produce. When the teenage son of her housekeeper is murdered by the police and his activist friend is also shot by security forces, Mrs. Curren realizes that "now my eyes are open and I can never close them again." The only person to whom she can communicate her anguished feelings of futility and waste is an alcoholic derelict whom she prevails on to be her messenger after her death, by mailing the packet of her letters to her daughter. In them she records the rising tide of militancy among young blacks; brave, defiant and vengeful, they are a generation whose hearts have turned to iron. His metaphors in service to a story that moves with the implacability of a nightmare, Coetzee's own urgent message has never been so cogently delivered.From Library JournalThis is the South African novelist's most direct indictment of apartheid yet. It takes the form of a letter-diary from Mrs. Curren, a former classics professor dying of cancer, to her daughter in America. She details a series of strange events that turn her protected middle-class life upside down. A homeless alcoholic appears at her door, eventually becoming her companion and confessor. Her liberal sentiments and her very humanity are tested as she experiences directly the horrors of apartheid. She comes to recognize South Africa as a country in which the rigidity of both sides has led to barbarism and to acknowledge her complicity in upholding the system. Less allegorical than Coetzee's previous novels, this is still richly metaphoric. A brilliant, chilling look at the spiritual costs of apartheid. Recommended.

Todos hemos querido cambiar de vida, todos hemos querido huir alguna vez.Cuando el joven Jacob pierde todo, su familia y su futuro, y el mundo entero parece al borde del abismo en los difíciles años treinta, se aventura en un circo ambulante para trabajar como veterinario. Transcurren años de penuria y crueldad, pero también de ensueño y plenitud, pues Jacob encuentra en el deslumbrante espectáculo de los hermanos Banzini la amistad, al amor de su vida y a la traviesa elefanta Rosie.Han transcurrido ya muchos años, pero Jacob no se resigna a la postración que el destino le depara. Con renovada valentía nos revelará un secreto impactante y decidirá emprender nuevas andanzas, cueste lo que cueste.Sara Gruen, con un estilo apasionado y vibrante, ha escrito una novela aclamada por millones de libreros y lectores. Romance, lucha, asesinato, tragedia y humor integran el cartel de esta gran función que conmueve y asombra por igual.

Todos hemos querido cambiar de vida, todos hemos querido huir alguna vez.Cuando el joven Jacob pierde todo, su familia y su futuro, y el mundo entero parece al borde del abismo en los difíciles años treinta, se aventura en un circo ambulante para trabajar como veterinario. Transcurren años de penuria y crueldad, pero también de ensueño y plenitud, pues Jacob encuentra en el deslumbrante espectáculo de los hermanos Banzini la amistad, al amor de su vida y a la traviesa elefanta Rosie.Han transcurrido ya muchos años, pero Jacob no se resigna a la postración que el destino le depara. Con renovada valentía nos revelará un secreto impactante y decidirá emprender nuevas andanzas, cueste lo que cueste.Sara Gruen, con un estilo apasionado y vibrante, ha escrito una novela aclamada por millones de libreros y lectores. Romance, lucha, asesinato, tragedia y humor integran el cartel de esta gran función que conmueve y asombra por igual.

Las historias de Agua pesada son mundos en miniatura que contienen, en dosis altamente concentradas, la acidez, el cinismo y el profundo cuestionamiento de las bases de nuestra sociedad que caracterizan las grandes novelas de Martin Amis. Así, en uno de los cuentos, la sociedad es mayoritariamente gay, y los heterosexuales son una minoría perseguida, en otro, un sarcástico robot marciano nos trae extrañas noticias sobre la vida en el sistema solar, y en el relato ‘Agua pesada’, Amis retrata sin piedad el malestar y la fatiga de la cultura de la clase trabajadora.

Este relato no es exactamente una biografía de Jesús Aguirre, sino un retablo ibérico donde este personaje se refleja en los espejos deformantes del callejón del Gato, como una figura de la corte de los milagros de Valle-Inclán. Medio siglo de la historia de España forma parte de este esperpento literario.Esta travesía escrita en primera persona es también un trayecto de mi propia memoria y en ella aparece el protagonista Jesús Aguirre, el magnífico, rodeado de teólogos alemanes, escritores, políticos y aristócratas de una época, de sucesos, pasiones, éxitos y fracasos de una generación que desde la alcantarilla de la clandestinidad ascendió a los palacios. Un perro dálmata se pasea entre los libros de ensayo de la Escuela de Fráncfort como un rasgo intelectual de suprema elegancia.Jesús Aguirre, decimoctavo duque de Alba por propios méritos de una gran escalada, sintetiza esta crónica, que va desde la postguerra hasta el inicio de este siglo. Su vida fantasmagórica, pese a ser tan real, no puede distinguirse de la ficción literaria.

'Geoff Ryman's new novel is swift, smart and convincing. Air is a wonderful and frightening examination of old and new, and survival on the interface between'. – Greg Bear'This is a liminal book: its characters are on the threshold of something new; their village is on the brink of change; the world is launching into a new way to connect; humanity, at the end of the novel, is on the cusp of evolution… its plot is exciting and suspenseful, its characters gripping, its wisdom lightly and gracefully offered, its language clear and beautiful. Like The Child Garden, Air is both humane and wise. This novel is such a village. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It becomes finer as I think back on it, and I look forward to rereading it. I only wish Ryman's work were more widely available and more widely read, as it deserves'.- Joan Gordon New York Review of Science Fiction'Ryman renders the village and people of Kizuldah with such humane insight and sympathy that we experience the novel almost like the Air it describes: It's around us and in us, more real than real, and it leaves us changed as surely as Mae's contact with Air changes her. This amazing balance that Ryman maintains – mourning change while embracing it – renders Air not merely powerful, thought-provoking, and profoundly moving, but indispensable. It's a map of our world, written in the imaginary terrain of Karzistan. It's a guide for all of us, who will endure change, mourn our losses, and must find a way to love the new sea that swamps our houses, if we are not to grow bitter and small and afraid'. – Robert Killheffer, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction'The wondrous art wrought in Ryman's Air shows some of its meaning plainly, calling forth grins, astonishment and tears. More of its meaning is tucked away inside, like the seven hidden curled-up dimensions of spacetime, like the final pages of the third book of Dante, beyond words or imagining high and low. Treasure this book'. – Damien Broderick, Locus

At the turn of the century Théophile and Suzanne Valence sail into the Mexican copper-mining town of Santa Sofìa. Théo has travelled here to build a metal church designed by his mentor, the great engineer Gustave Eiffel. His wife Suzanne, wayward and graced with the gift of clairvoyance is deeply in love and has insisted on accompanying him. But the magical landscape inspires no answering passion in Théo. In her loneliness she turns to the American gold prospector Wilson Pharaoh, and soon he, like the town and its inhabitants, falls under her spell, an enchantment as seductive as Suzanne herself.

From traffic control to Customs hall, from the airport manager's office to lay-over apartments in `Stewardesses' Row' the rooms are filled with men and women whose private pressures and passions match the fury of the blizzard that sweeps across the runways outside... For seven hours of suspense, a blocked runway, suicide, pickets, an aerial stowaway, pregnancy, smuggling, mass demonstrations, and a psychotic with his home-made bomb build to a nail-biting climax...

From traffic control to Customs hall, from the airport manager's office to lay-over apartments in “Stewardesses’ Row” the rooms are filled with men and women whose private pressures and passions match the fury of the blizzard that sweeps across the runways outside... For seven hours of suspense, a blocked runway, suicide, pickets, an aerial stowaway, pregnancy, smuggling, mass demonstrations, and a psychotic with his home-made bomb build to a nail-biting climax…

Now considered a contemporary classic, Airships was honored by Esquire magazine with the Arnold Gingrich Short Fiction Award. The twenty stories in this collection are a fresh, exuberant celebration of the new American South — a land of high school band contests, where good old boys from Vicksurg are reunited in Vietnam and petty nostalgia and the constant pain of disappointed love prevail. Airships is a striking demonstration of Barry Hannah's mature and original talent.

Zana RamadaniAiz plīvura slēptās briesmasVara, kas piemīt musulmaņu mātēm, un briesmas, ko rada vāciešu tolerance. Demokrātija ir vērtība, kuru jāprot aizsargāt. Šļauganums un naivitāte, kas piekāpjas jebkuras brutalitātes priekšā, nav demokrātija, bet ir gļēvulība. Zaņas Ramadani juridiski korekto un antropoloģiski precīzo Vācijas divkopienu sabiedrības aprakstu nepieciešams izlasīt ikvienam Latvijas cilvēktiesību speciālistam un politiķim/ei, kas balso vai lemj par imigrāciju, bēgļiem un sabiedrības integrāciju.Leons Taivans, LU profesorsŠajā grāmatā iekļautas norādes par interneta avotiem, kuru saturu neietekmē “Europa Verlag” un tai nav par svešo informāciju nekādas atbildības. Par norādīto internēta avotu saturu ir atbildīgi attiecīgās lapas tābrīža piedāvātāji vai uzturētāji.No vācu valodas tulkojusi Ilona Burkaskanējis indarsss@inbox.lvJumava 2018Zaņa Ramadani Die Verschleierte Gefahr"Islāmisti mūs pieveiks ar mūsu pašu likumiem ” (Zaņa Ramadani].Copyright © 2017 by Europa Verlag GmbH & Со. KG, Berlin • Miinchen • Ziirich • Wien Translation copyright © 2017

Twelve-year-old Sunny lives in Nigeria, but she was born American. Her features are African, but she's albino. She's a terrific athlete, but can't go out into the sun to play soccer. There seems to be no place where she fits. And then she discovers something amazing – she is a "free agent," with latent magical power. Soon she's part of a quartet of magic students, studying the visible and invisible, learning to change reality. But will it be enough to help them when they are asked to catch a career criminal who knows magic too?

From the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and author of the Cairo trilogy, comes Akhenaten, a fascinating work of fiction about the most infamous pharaoh of ancient Egypt.In this beguiling new novel, originally published in 1985 and now appearing for the first time in the United States, Mahfouz tells with extraordinary insight the story of the "heretic pharaoh," or "sun king,"-and the first known monotheistic ruler-whose iconoclastic and controversial reign during the 18th Dynasty (1540-1307 B.C.) has uncanny resonance with modern sensibilities. Narrating the novel is a young man with a passion for the truth, who questions the pharaoh's contemporaries after his horrible death-including Akhenaten's closest friends, his most bitter enemies, and finally his enigmatic wife, Nefertiti-in an effort to discover what really happened in those strange, dark days at Akhenaten's court. As our narrator and each of the subjects he interviews contribute their version of Akhenaten, "the truth" becomes increasingly evanescent. Akhenaten encompasses all of the contradictions his subjects see in him: at once cruel and empathic, feminine and barbaric, mad and divinely inspired, his character, as Mahfouz imagines him, is eerily modern, and fascinatingly ethereal. An ambitious and exceptionally lucid and accessible book, Akhenaten is a work only Mahfouz could render so elegantly, so irresistibly.

One night, Akram Khan walks out of his house towards an appointed time and place where he is supposed to detonate a bomb that will end his life and that of many innocent bystanders. As he wanders through the town he encounters Grace, whose life has been marred just as his has, forming an unlikely closeness borne of need and necessity. Akram tells Grace about his seemingly inexorable journey towards radicalization: a childhood within the tight-knit Pakistani community, his complex friendships among outcasts, his disastrous years in the army, and his empty arranged marriage to a woman who remains a stranger. Delicately drawn, Akram's War is an honest and shocking kaleidoscopic portrait of contemporary Britain, and of the ways in which the twists and turns of fate can scar and mark a life.

Un Famoso Fotógrafo Bélico Intenta Descubrir Las Claves De Una Gigantesca Conspiración A Escala Internacional.