We Monks & Soldiers (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780803239913)

From one of the most original French writers of our day comes a mysterious, prismatic, and at times profoundly sad reflection on humanity in its darker moments--one of which may very well be our own. In a collection of fictions that blur distinctions between dreaming and waking reality, Lutz Bassmann sets off a series of echoes--the "entrevoutes" that conduct us from one world to another in a journey as viscerally powerful as it is intellectually heady. While humanity seems to be fading around them, the members of a shadowy organization are doing their inadequate best to assist those experiencing their last moments. From a soldier-monk exorcising what seem to be spirits (but are they?) from an abandoned house, to a spy executing a mission whose meaning eludes him, to characters exploring cells, wandering through ruins, confronting political dissent and persecution, encountering--perhaps--the spirits once exorcised, these stories conduct us through a world at once ambiguous and sharply observed. This remarkable work, in Jordan Stump's superb translation, offers readers a thrilling entry into Bassmann's numinous world.


Author: Lutz Bassmann, Antoine Volodine
ISBN-10: 0803239912
ISBN-13: 9780803239913
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Language: English
Published: 09/01/2012
Pages: 200
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.58w x 0.43d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 07/23/2012 pg. 29