In Red

by Magdalena Tulli

Genres: Historical Fiction; Literary Fiction; Visionary & Metaphysical

Synopsis

By the Koscielski Prize-winning author of Dream and Stones, In Red is the gripping cautionary tale in which real and unreal combine explosively, making us question the nature of the work itself. Set in an imaginary fourth partition of Poland, In Red retraces the turbulent history of the Twentieth Century in a labyrinth of greed, inheritance, and entropy, enacting—word by tremulous word—the claustrophobia of a small town from which there seems to be no escape. Never have Tulli's trademark precision of language and her crystalline storytelling been put to such brilliant use.

Release date: October 18, 2011

Publisher: Archipelago

Print pages: 200

Sample

Whoever has been everywhere and seen everything, last of all should pay a visit to Stitchings. Simply take a seat in a sleigh and, before being overcome by sleep, speed across a plain that’s as empty as a blank sheet of paper, boundless as life itself. Sooner or later this someone—perhaps it is a traveling salesman with a valise full of samples—will see great mounds of snow stretching along streets to the four corners of the earth, toward empty, icy expanses. He’ll see pillars made of icicles, their snowy caps lost in the dark of a wintry sky. He’ll draw into his lungs air as sharp as a razor that cuts feeling away from breath. He’ll come to appreciate the benefits of a climate forever unencumbered by restless springtime breezes, by the indolence of summer swelter, or the misty sorrows of autumn. He’ll take a liking to frost, which conserves feelings and capital, protecting both from the corruption of decay.