Decapolis: Tales from Ten Cities
Larissa Boehning · David Constantine · Arnon Grunberg · Emil Hakl · Amanda Michalopoulou · Empar Moliner · Aldo Nove. · Jacques Réda · Dalibor Šimpraga · Ágúst Borgþór Sverrisson
Dec 2013 · Comma Press
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About this ebook
Decapolis is a book which imagines the city otherwise. Bringing together ten writers from across Europe, it offers snapshots of their native cities, freezing for a moment the characters and complexities that define them. Ten cities: diverse, incompatible, contradictory in everything from language to landscape. In Amsterdam every Friday night, a lonely woman cooks for her men, a circle of middle-aged bachelors. In Barcelona, a self-regarding poet tries to capture the essence of the city in an eleven-word lyric. In Reykjavik, an unemployed journalist wanders through the deserted buildings of the newspaper he once wrote for. In all cases, these are cities in states of transition: Zagreb in the shadow of the Balkan conflict; Manchester on the cusp of social and economic change; Berlin with half its industrial buildings abandoned like the Mary Celeste. The ultimate untranslatability of these cities experiences is never in question, and yet through these fractured, isolated glimpses chance encounters, snatches of conversation, local TV bulletins something quite unlikely begins to emerge: a commonality grounded in the fleeting and the momentary, a continuum, perhaps, of urban experience *'Deca-Polis': Greek for ten-cities.
About the author
Larissa Boehning was born in Berlin in 1971. Her debut collection, Swallow Summer, published in 2003, received critical acclaim firmly establishing her as one to watch. Critics were amazed by the way her virtuoso literary abilities allowed her to make the small disasters that occur in everyday life appear continually interesting and relevant. Boehning is able to capture the absurdity of the fixed situation avoiding banality. Her fascinating characters are depicted in a marvellously rhythmic prose.
David Constantine is an award-winning poet and translator. His volumes of poetry include Madder, Watching for Dolphins, The Pelt of Wasps, Something for the Ghosts and the epic poem Casper Hauser. He is a translator of Hölderlin, Brecht, Goethe, Kleist, Enzensberger, Michaux and Joccottet. In 2003 he was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Prize and in the same year won the Corneliu M Popescu Prize for European Poetry in Translation. In 2004 his poem ‘Trilobite in Wenlock Shales’ was shortlisted for Best Individual Poem in the Forward Prize. Under The Dam is his first full collection of short stories.
Born in 1971 in Amsterdam, Arnon Grunberg is one of the most widely read young European writers today. After he had been kicked out of high school, he worked as an assistant in a drugstore, as a dishwasher, publisher, and playwright for an Amsterdam theatre company. In 1994, at the age of 23, he made his debut with the internationally acclaimed novel Blue Mondays which won him two awards: for the best and for the bestselling debut novel. Prolific, provocative and witty, in his novels and short fiction alike Arnon Grunberg explores his Jewish background and manages to turn upside down, in a hilarious way, our ideas on Jewishness, Europe, and sex.
Amanda Michalopoulou was born in Athens in 1966 and belongs to the youngest generation of Greek novelists. She has published a collection of short storiesOutside Life Is Colourful and has contributed to several anthologies. Her first novel Wishbone Memories was awarded the 1996 novel prize of the literary magazine Diavazo. Her latest, How Many Times Can You Bear It, taking its title from Kafka´s journals, is the story of a middle-aged Greek woman pursuing her Czech lover across Europe, is a parody of road novels, stories of unhappy love and tales of the supernatural.
Empar Moliner burst onto the Catalan and Spanish literary scene in 1999 with her book, L' ensenyador de pisos que odiava els mims, a collection of satirical stories demonstrating a cold, sarcastic, and sometimes shocking view of everyday obsession. Her first novel, Feli, esthéticienne, is a comic account of passion; it was awarded the prominent Josep Pla Prize in 2000. Her collection of stories, T'estimo si he begut, was awarded the most influential Catalan literary prize, the Lletra d'Or Prize, and was voted the book of the year by La Vanguardia and El Periódico magazines. She currently works as a writer and journalist.
Aldo Nove, real name Antonello Satta Centanin, lives in Milan, translates from English, works for several daily papers and writes lyrics for the rock band Democrazia Cristiana and the musician, Garbo. His first story collection Woobinda e altre storie senza lieto fine (Woobinda and Other Stories Without the Happy Ending) was published in 1996 and two years later the extended version was published under the title Superwoobinda. His novels are Puerto Plata Market (1997) and Amore mio infinito (My Immortal Beloved, 2000).
Jacques Réda’s writing investigates the underside of everyday banality. He is famous for his verse and prose, both of which record urban and suburban explorations, on foot, bicycle or Solex. He is also a Jazz critic and an editor of great distinction (he was at the head of the Nouvelle Revue Française from 1987 to 1997). Réda’s writing is a space of ongoing metamorphosis, reflecting the endless interactions of Paris and its inhabitants.
Šimpraga (b. 1969) is a writer and editor of the weekly magazine Globus. Kavice Andreja Puplina (Andrej Puplin’s Coffee Chats), a collection of short stories about the lives of 20–year–olds living in the 90’s in Zagreb, was published in 2002. These urban, hard tales about the everyday life of a lost war generation were previously published on the Internet, where they achieved great popularity. In 1998 director Branko Ištvancic shot a movie based on the novel, and the actor Hrvoje Zalar turned it into a play. Together with the writer Igor Štiks he was editor of the Anthology of new Croatian prose fiction from the 90’s, 22 u hladu (22 in the shade, 1999).
Ágúst Borgþór Sverrisson is first and foremost a short story writer. His first stories were published in his high school magazine, M.R., and in 1987 his story ‘Saknaa’ (Missing) was published in the literary magazine TMM. He was at the time working on his first short story collection, and the poetry book Eftirlast augnablik (Wanted Moments). To date, he has published five collections of short stories, the latest being Tvisvar à Ãvinni (Twice in a Lifetime, 2004). His stories have also appeared in numerous magazines. He is working on his first novel.
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