These texts are characterized by a startling and macabre novelty, with elements of the grotesque, fantastic and child-like touching the imagination of the everyday. They express the cultural landscape of Stalinism -- years of show trials, mass atrocities and stifled political life. Their painful, unsettling eloquence testify to the humane and the comic in this absurdist writer's work. The translator Neil Cornwall gives a biographical introduction to his subject, enlarged upon by the poet Hugh Maxton in a contextual assessment of the writing of Flann O'Brien, Le Fanu and Doyle, and of their shared concerns with detective fiction, terror and death. Daniil Kharms 91905-42) died under Stalin. Along with fellow poets and prose-writers of the era -- Khlebnikov, Biely, Mandelstam, Zabolotsky and Pasternak -- he is one of the emerging experimentalists of Russian modernism.

    I drifted very slowly to the eastward, approaching the island slantingly; and presently I saw, with hysterical relief, the launch come round and return towards me.

    A Mass for Arras explores the personal and political consequences of fear, fanaticism, and fascism in the story of Jan, a young member of the intelligentsia. Arrogantly pious and full of revolutionary zeal, Jan wholeheartedly participates in the torments inflicted on the "outsiders" in the name of moral and political righteousness. Yet when faced with escalating violence and, ultimately, his own downfall, he must choose between sincere commitment to the isolated village that adopted him and horror at a society gone mad. A Mass for Arras addresses themes of freedom and responsibility, individualism and conformity, and memory and loss. It is a moving account of a young man's coming-of-age in a time of disease and death, a profound political allegory of life in an emergent totalitarian state, a chilling indictment of government-sponsored repression and societal complicity, and a cautionary tale about the tendency of history to repeat itself, whether in fifteenth-century France, postwar Poland, or somewhere still closer to our own time and place.

    His daughter is led to her death, and Agamemnon leads his army into battle, where he is rewarded with glorious victory. Three years later, he returns home and his murderous action has set the entire family - mother, brother, sister - on a path of intimate violence, as they enter a world of hushed commands and soundless journeys through the palace's dungeons and bedchambers. As his wife seeks his death, his daughter, Electra, is the silent observer to the family's game of innocence while his son, Orestes, is sent into bewildering, frightening exile where survival is far from certain. Out of their desolating loss, Electra and Orestes must find a way to right these wrongs of the past even if it means committing themselves to a terrible, barbarous act.House of Names is a story of intense longing and shocking betrayal. It is a work of great beauty, and daring, from one of our finest living writers.

    Perfect for fans of Lee Child, and I AM PILGRIM, by Terry Hayes.HIS PAST IS UNKNOWN. HIS FUTURE UNWRITTEN.WHO IS SOLOMON CREED?A plane crashes in the Arizona desert.One lone figure emerges alive from the wreckage.He has no memory of his past, and no idea of his future.He only knows he must save a man.But how do you save someone who is already dead?

    Full of wry humour, Kavanagh's unsentimental and evocative account of his Irish rural upbringing describes a patriarchal society surviving on the edge of poverty, sustained by the land and an insatiable love of gossip. There are tales of schoolboy skirmishes, blackberrying and night-time salmon-poaching; of country-weddings and fairs, of political banditry and religious pilgrimages; and of farm-work in the fields and kicking mares.

    Narayan has few rivals when it comes to bringing alive people and places. Most of his timeless novels are set in the fictional town of Malgudi, located somewhere in South India, a town as real to his readers as any they will find on the map. This volume contains three quintessential Malgudi novels — Swami and Friends, The Bachelor of Arts and The Vendor of Sweets. Swami and Friends, published in 1935, was the first novel Narayan wrote. Described by Graham Greene as a novel in ten thousand, it recounts the adventures of ten-year-old Swaminathan and his friends Rajam and Mani. The Bachelor of Arts, the second novel in the collection, is a brilliantly realized account of the workings of a young man’s mind. It is the story of Chandran, in his final year at college, who falls hopelessly in love and is forced to exile himself from the familiar surroundings of Malgudi until he is able to arrive at a satisfactory resolution to his problems. The Vendor of Sweets showcases a classic cross-generational battle, between Jagan, a widower of firm Ghandian principles, and his ‘modern’ son Mali, who returns to Malgudi with a half-American wife and a grand plan for selling story-writing machines.The third in the series of Penguin India’s collectors’ editions of the Malgudi novels, The Magic of Malgudi, with an introduction by S. Krishnan, will delight first-time readers as well as devoted Narayan fans.

    He soon learns that every aspect of his life so far, including the staged deaths of his parents, has been arranged by the Senate Tribunal in an attempt to mold him into the perfect leader. Now there are only thirty candidates, including Caius, left competing to be the Emperor's heir. Success in a series of Trials will reunite him with his family and make him the most powerful man in the world, but failure will lead to a life of isolation and imprisonment hidden in the eaves of the palace. As Caius enters the trials, it becomes apparent that the tests themselves are not the problem: it is the twenty nine other candidates willing to do whatever it takes to win, including maim or kill their top competitors. Can Caius navigate the pitfalls of imperial politics and cutthroat competition, all while performing well enough to succeed in the trials fair and square?

    Innocent Smith, a bubbly, high-spirited gentleman who literally falls into their midst. Later accused of murder and denounced for philandering everywhere he goes, Smith prompts his newfound acquaintances to recognize an important idea in most unexpected ways.

    The only unabridged prose translation of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso - a witty parody of the chivalric legends of Charlemagne and the Saracen invasion of France - this version faithfully recaptures the entire narrative and the subtle meanings behind it.

    After ten years of war, Troy has fallen to the Greeks, and Cassandra is now a prisoner, shackled up outside the gates of Agamemnon’s Mycenae. Through memories of her childhood and reflections on the long years of conflict, Cassandra pieces together the fall of her city. From a woman living in an age of heroes, here is the untold personal story overshadowed by the battlefield triumphs of Achilles and Hector.This stunning reimagining of the Trojan War is a rich and vivid portrayal of the great tragedy that continues to echo throughout history.

    After eighteen years of publishing anonymously and reading only to local crowds in the Pacific Northwest, he began to issue occasional limited-edition letterpress chapbooks with a small press, as well as occasional broadsides and, since 1987, a winter solstice poem or story, most given as gifts to friends. Rain on the River contains work collected here for the first time, as well as three dozen previously unpublished poems. Dodge's poems and short prose offer the same pleasures as his fiction -- a splendid ear for language, great emotional range and subtlety, a sharp eye for the illuminating detail, and a sensibility that encompasses outright hilarity, savage wit, and tender marvel, all made eminently accessible through writing of uncompromising clarity and grace. "Like being at a nonstop party in celebration of everything that matters." -- Thomas Pynchon "A rollicking, frequently surprising adventure-cum-fairy tale. It also has a sweetness about it and an indigenous American optimism." -- The New York Times Book Review "Diverse, savvy, passionate.... Poetry should be a pleasure, and Jim Dodge's work is just that." -- Gary Snyder

    Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

    But MT Vasudevan Nair (popularly known as “MT”) turned him into a three-dimensional figure, more sensitive and thoughtful than he is usually given credit for. “He took familiar building blocks and created an entirely new, incredibly compelling construct from them,” says Prem Panicker, senior journalist, Rediff.com co-founder and a long-time admirer of MT’s work.