PUBLISHERS OF LITERARY FICTION SINCE 1983
Translator: Liz Nash Cover illustration: Lise Weisgerber
In her native France Germain's magical, sinister novels have been heaped with prizes including the prestigious Prix Femina. For some years she taught philosophy in Prague and this city provides the setting for her latest book. It tells the story of a university professor who, with his dissident friends, has been reduced to menial work by the Communist regime. Superficially realistic in style, the writing displays Germain's power of description and emotional intensity, as it follows the man's re integration into society.
As befits a book from a doctor of philosophy from the Sorbonne, post-existentialism merges with postmodernism. Everything is infinitely alterable and remarkably the same, melded together by an unusual rhapsodic style and finely rendered by Liz Nash's translation. Read it, and discover a rare author, a true translator and an innovative publisher.
Anything less likely than a spreading patch of damp on a toilet ceiling as the starting point for a novel of intense beauty and rare emotional insight would be hard to imagine. But this 'flower of passing time', as Prokop Poupa calls his unorthodox interior decor, is the inspiration for Sylvie Germain's Infinite Possibilities : a novel of kaleidoscopic richness and colour.
RRP: £8.99
No. of pages: 168
ISBN numbers:
Paperback
978 1 873982 23 5
Rights:
Dedalus World English