Bøger udgivet af Dedalus Ltd

A tragic event changes Ciro Incoronato's life and he takes solace in crack cocaine and living in a fantasy world of his own creation. He has a life of violence and crime as a minor member of a Camorra crime family and gets his kicks by chasing the cars of young women up and down the Naples ring road, called by the locals La Strada degli Americani (The American Road). We see the world through his eyes and the havoc he causes through the eyes of others; a thirty-year-old factory worker Carmine Scognamiglio, a beautiful young music student Martina Marinelli and ultimately the Naples lawcourts.

This collection contains short stories translated for the first time as well as stories featured in Dedalus anthologies. Together with volume 1 they comprise the most comprehensive collection of Meyrink short stories to appear in English. "Meyrink's short stories epitomised the non-plus-ultra of all modern writing. Their magnificent colour, their spine-chilling and bizarre inventiveness, their aggression, their succinctness of style, their overwhelming originality of ideas, which is so evident in every sentence and phrase that there seem to be no lacunae." -- Max Brod"These tales - sc-fi, ghost-stories, gothic fables, oriental allegories - were written in the first decade of the century and are now translated for the first time. They make a magnificent introduction to his bizarre genius, which combined the sharp Bohemian scepticism of his contemporary Kafka with the mordant humour and outreach of Swift." -- Independent on Sunday

First published in 1994 it is a welcome return for these classic stories in a 2-volume collection of Meyrink's short stories. "Meyrink's short stories epitomised the non-plus-ultra of all modern writing. Their magnificent colour, their spine-chilling and bizarre inventiveness, their aggression, their succinctness of style, their overwhelming originality of ideas, which is so evident in every sentence and phrase that there seem to be no lacunae." -- Max Brod"These tales - sc-fi, ghost-stories, gothic fables, oriental allegories - were written in the first decade of the century and are now translated for the first time. They make a magnificent introduction to his bizarre genius, which combined the sharp Bohemian scepticism of his contemporary Kafka with the mordant humour and outreach of Swift." -- Independent on Sunday

The Dedalus Book of Faroese Literature offers a wide-ranging selection of fiction from the end of the nineteenth century until the present day, including work by The Faroes' classic and most important contemporary authors. The Faroes is an autonomous region of Denmark and consists of 18 small islands with a population of 52,000 and is situated in the Atlantic Ocean midway between Scotland and Iceland. It is almost incredible that such a small country could have produced such a wonderful and extensive literature in 2 languages. Even more incredible is that it produced 2 of the greatest Scandinavian authors of the twentieth century William Heinesen and Jorgen-Frantz Jacobsen. The twenty-seven texts of The Dedalus Book of Faroese Literature take the reader on a voyage of discovery as they fall under the spell of these windswept islands

Monsieur de Phocas ranks with A Rebours as the summation of the French Decadent Movement. Modelled on The Portrait of Dorian Gray, it drips with evil and certainly would have unpublishable in fin-de-siecle England. 'With Ethel's friends, grotesque, ageing decadents, Phocas for the first time tastes opium. He experiences the pleasure of absolute degradation, and the double pleasure of being both observer and observed, dominant subject and passive object. As the opium takes effect, the naked Javanese dancers at the orgy vanish in a swirling cloud, to be replaced by a dark lamplit street where two thieves carefully saw at a woman's throat with a delicate knifeblade. From this cruel vision, Phocas soars into dizzy flight from which, suddenly, he plunges to destruction, into oozing depths where clinging vampires suck his blood, until he almost swoons into spasms. The mysterious, vicious double is on the threshold of existence: Phocas sees himself as Giles de Retz in the forest of Tiffauges, haunted by obscene desires.' Jennifer Birkett in Sins of the Fathers

'Literally translated as "down there", là-bas is here used by Huysmans in its other sense: Hell. This novel is one of the key texts of the Decadent movement of the 1890s and writhes with satanists, occultists, incubi (male demons), succubi (female demons) and intellectuals. Durtal is a disaffected, middle-aged writer living in Paris, not unlike Huysmans himself. Working on a biography of Gilles de Rais, a 15th-century nobleman and mass murderer widely thought to be the model for Bluebeard, Durtal researches Rais's obsession with alchemy. Through this, he becomes drawn into the underworld of 19th-century satanic worship. This sounds racy, and some areas of the novel do not disappoint: several setpieces - the description of a crucifixion, Rais's murderous rampage and the climactic debauched satanic mass - are described in vivid and barbaric prose. The rest follows the conversations of Durtal's friends over elaborate dinners in a gothic bell tower: peppered with references to historical figures and demonology, the obsessive detail at times verges on the comic. Durtal's friend des Hermies reports in the tones of a gossiping housewife that one devil-worshipping priest "fattens fish on consecrated wafers and toxic substances ... fortified by sacrilegious rites ... [then] leaves them to putrefy and extracts their essential oils". A precursor to the horror fiction of HP Lovecraft and the nihilism of Michel Houellebecq, Huysman's fascination with evil and gore, history and the gothic is clear, although one can be left with the impression of gutter press themes cloaked in a literary veil. As the first, and the darkest, in a tetralogy about conversion to Catholicism there is at least the hope of redemption to follow.' Sophia Martelli in The Observer

In The Dedalus Book of the 1960s: Turn Off Your Mind, Gary Lachman uncovers the Love Generation's roots in occultism and explores the dark side of the Age of Aquarius. His provocative revision of the 1960s counterculture links Flower Power to mystical fascism, and follows the magical current that enveloped luminaries like the Beatles, Timothy Leary and the Rolling Stones, and darker stars like Charles Manson, Anton LaVey, and the Process Church of the Final Judgment. Acclaimed by satanists and fundamentalist Christians alike, this edition includes a revised text incorporating new material on the 'suicide cult' surrounding Carlos Castaneda; the hippy serial killer Charles Sobhraj; the strange case of Ira Einhorn, 'the Unicorn'; the CIA and ESP; the new millennialism and more. From H.P. Lovecraft to the Hell's Angels, find out how the Morning of the Magicians became the Night of the Living Dead.

Teodorico Raposo, the novel's anti-hero, is a master of deceit; one minute feigning devotion in front of his rich, pious aunt, in order to inherit her money, the next indulging in debauchery. Spurred on by the desire to please his aunt, and in order to get away from his unfaithful mistress, he embarks on a journey to the Holy Land in search of a holy relic. The resulting fiasco is a masterpiece of comic irony as religious bigotry and personal greed are mercilessly ridiculed. 'Eca de Queiroz wrote in an elegant, clear prose. He was also a satirist with great eye for details who described in his novels the absurdities of the society around him, and living in Portugal he was never short of absurd things to make fun of. Here he attacks religion, greed, gullibility and hypocrisy, always with irony and humor, which makes The Relic a very light and enjoyable 'experience. -' World Literature Forum

The Dedalus Book of Latvian Womens Literature. In the late 80s and early 90s, the work of authors such as Andra Neiburga, Gundega Repse and Nora Ikstena, heralded a new era of female writers in a country yearning for its freedom which it finally achieved. Nora Ikstenas novel Soviet Milk, was translated into thirty-one languages. Authors who appeared after the millennium like Inga Abele, and Inga Zolude, who have shaped and continue to shape contemporary Latvian literature, round off this collection.

A fierce battle for freedom in the deep forests of the wintry north... The Bird Master is the second book in the four-part series Song of the Eye Stone. Set in a fantastical world, it is an epic saga of friendship, longing and the things that truly matter in life. It is published with the other three books in the series. In their failed quest for the eye stone, Miranda and Syrsa found each other instead. Now they have settled in a northern port town where they must learn to forget about pearls and adapt to a peaceful life in their new woodcutters' community. But the peace is soon broken when timid birds mysteriously begin attacking the townspeople. Miranda realises it must be the work of their old foe Iberis, whose greed and power has reached them all the way up north. Bird attacks are just the beginning. Soon the whole town is under the tyranny of Iberis and the eye stone. And only Syrsa and Miranda can save them.

Magical treasures and terrible dangers in a beautiful underwater world... The Pearl Whisperer is the first book in the four-part series Song of the Eye Stone. Set in a fantastical world, it is an epic saga of friendship, longing and the things that truly matter in life. It is published with the other three books in the series. Pearls are the most precious commodity in the Queendom, and Miranda is the most skilled pearl fisher of all, even with only one arm. But she has her eyes on a greater treasure: the famous eye stone. Legend has it that whoever finds the eye stone will never want for anything again. But how is Miranda supposed to find it when Syrsa, a chatty little girl with no diving experience, insists on tagging along? It soon becomes clear that they are not the only ones on the hunt for the eye gemstone. Iberis, the white-haired woman with the burning eyes, is right behind them. Who finds it first will depend on the mythical pearl whisperer, someone with the magical ability to hear the pearl's song.

The stories in The Angels of Perversity are key examples of early Symbolist prose shaped and inspired by the French Decadent consciousness and must rank among the best short stories of the 1890s.The tone of the stories is unique, with an unusual mixture of decadence and eroticism, balanced by an ironic and sentimental view of the world. "Anatole France called Remy de Gourmont (1858-1915) the 'greatest living French writer'. The stories Francis Amery has collected and translated under the not inappropriate title The Angels of Perversity are from the first half of Gourmont's career, when, as a writer of short fictions he established himself as a significant figure in the Symbolist movement." --Adrian Tahourdin in The Times Literary Supplement

At the center of Be As Children is an ailing Vladimir Lenin, infected not with syphilis, as some historians have claimed, but with Christian fervor. Regressing stroke by stroke to an infancy of his own, he renounces his faith in the proletariat and puts all his hope in the many children left homeless and orphaned by the Civil War. Only they will be loyal to the cause and only they can save it. Around this story Sharov weaves two other plots: a murderer who converts a Siberian people to Christianity and the life story of a female holy fool. Epic in scope and highly original in execution, Be as Little Children shows exactly why, since his untimely death in 2018, Vladimir Sharov has been widely celebrated in Russia as one of the few outstanding novelists of his era and a true heir to the classic authors of the nineteenth century.

"If a world can be seen in a grain of sand, then surely phobia can be found in a handful of dust, or so contends obsessed British housewife Marcia, as she does endless battle with dandruff, the carapaces of roaches, grease, rust, grit, the whole panoply of household detritus. Terrorized by the imminent arrival of her coffee-morning ladies, she vacuums the carpet, only to be bested by the spirit Mucor, whose Latin name embodies all elements of slime and grime and who tries to entice her into the kingdom of filth over which he rules. To avoid him she enters the dazzling cleanliness of the Pieter de Hooch canvas hanging on her wall, invoking de Hooch and a raft of other geniuses- Darwin, Teilhard de Chardin, Leonardo, Blake, Dostoyevski, even Jesus to assist her. The coffee-morning ladies arrive; she half-listens to their prattle while impatiently waiting for them to leave so she can attack the dishes they have dirtied. Soon her husband, whom she suspects of having an affair with one of the ladies, will come home; how can she defeat Mucor before that moment? The solution is in perfect harmony with this astonishing work of imagination and erudition." Kirkus Reviews

Lyrical and blackly comic, A Provincial Death is a startlingly original meditation on solitude and perseverance, the consolations of art and philosophy, and the capacity of human beings to endure catastrophe. It is a hot, summer morning and Smyth, a struggling writer and academic, wakes to discover he is stranded alone on a rock in the Irish Sea. As he clings on in hope of salvation, he is assailed by broken memories and the failures of his past. Fragmented images of the previous day come to him: a mysterious research institute, a dead forest, a rickety boat captained by a gruff old fisherman, an eccentric academic named McGovern who believed that the Moon was about to crash into the Earth, destroying everything. Confused, weary and sore, and with the tide rising inexorably and strange sea creatures circling, Smyth tries to make sense of an arbitrary world in a desperate bid for survival.

Take Six: Six Spanish Women Writers is an anthology of short stories by six outstanding Spanish women writers: Emilia Pardo Bazán (1851-1921), Carmen de Burgos (1867-1932), Carmen Laforet (1921-2004), Cristina Fernández Cubas (born 1945), Soledad Puértolas (born 1947) and Patricia Erlés (born 1972). The stories span over one hundred years, starting with the indomitable Emilia Pardo Bazán, whose casual and often humorous protrayal of brutal domestic violence set a paradigm for the writers who followed her to explore every aspect of the roles imposed on women by a male-dominated society, delving into subjects ranging from love and betrayal to bereavement, arson and murder, without losing touch with the humorous side of seemingly impossible situations.

Co-Wives, Co-Widows is the first adult work of fiction from the Central African Republic to be translated into English. This is the story of Ndongo Passy and Grekpoubou, the two widows of Lidou. Following their husband's sudden and unexplained death, they find themselves fighting tooth and nail for all that is important to them. A playful, bittersweet, story full of dry wit and local colour, set against a backdrop of political instability, corruption and the friction between the old and the new in Bangui in the Central African Republic.

The Decadence Movement which flourished in the 1890s produced some of Europe's most striking and exotic works of literature The Decadents, convinced that civilization was in a state of terminal decline, refused to rebel as the Romantics had, but set forth instead to cultivate the pleasures of calculated perversity and to seek the artificial paradise of drug-induced hallucination. "The Dedalus Book of Decadence looks south to sample the essence of fine French decadent writing. It succeeds in delivering a range of writers either searching vigorously for the thrill of a healthy crime or lamenting their impuissance from a sickly stupor." --Andrew St George in The Independent

A collection of short stories by one of the Arab world's most accomplished and acclaimed writers. A grandmother who takes on a thief trying to seduce her daughters. A guard who fantasises about killing his general while locked in battle with a non-existent enemy. A film script about Libya's traffic problems improvised at a workshop. A woman's letter from her old school, which is now a makeshift refugee camp. A cow straying into a field, breaking an age-old truce between warring factions. The eight stories of Catalogue of a Private Life feel like oft-recounted folktales, where the ordinary has been softly twisted several degrees. Najwa Bin Shatwan navigates the tensions between loyalty and betrayal, ambition and regret, and tenderness and cruelty to weave a portrait of family, war and nation against a stark backdrop of the completely absurd.

The Decadence Movement which flourished in the 1890s produced some of Europe's most striking and exotic works of literature The Decadents, convinced that civilization was in a state of terminal decline, refused to rebel as the Romantics had, but set forth instead to cultivate the pleasures of calculated perversity and to seek the artificial paradise of drug-induced hallucination. J.-K. Huysmans described Decadence as a 'black feast' and The Second Dedalus Book of Decadence offers a veritable banquet, with offerings from the major practitioners in France and England. It completes Brian Stableford seminal two-volume study of the decadent movement.

The Runes Have Been Cast is a black comedy of darkest hue about academic and literary life set in Oxford and St Andrews in the early 60s. A tin of alphabet spaghetti brought about Lancelyn's first encounter with the apparently supernatural. Unfortunately it was not to be his last. Runes, ghosts and spaghetti apart, there is much for Lancelyn to be afraid of: the future, women, Critical Theory, sex romps, The Times' crossword puzzle, succubi and creative writing classes. The pages of The Runes Have Been Cast are haunted by M.R. James, Thomas de Quincey, Mr. Raven, St. Ignatius of Loyola, Iron Foot Jack, J.R.R. Tolkien and an anonymous tramp. "I do not think that I can have read a novel which makes so many references to actual works that I have never heard off. With a fairly complex plot, ghosts popping in and out, strange but colourful academics, much mirth and mockery, two young men too full of themselves, a rampaging sex goddess, lots of interesting books and authors, intertextuality galore, the idea of God as a novelist, immersive literature and Tolkien and his bloody elves, this book is a thoroughly enjoyable read." -John Alvey in The Modern Novel

This is the first English translation of Chasing the Dream, Liane de Pougy's first novel, published in 1898 when she was 29. It is the story of a courtesan in search of true love which repeatedly proves ungraspable - insaisissable. Josiane de Valneige is young, beautiful and rich. She is also exhausted, depressed and despairing. Although scores of wealthy Parisians have been her lovers, she has loved none in return. And despite Josiane's fame as one of the fin-de-siecle's grandes horizontales, fêted in every gossip column, the journey to success has revealed a flaw in her character: she has a heart. Her real self is never engaged. It is not enough to be universally loved. She needs, she yearns, to give her heart.

Serafino is a typical Pirandellian anti-hero, a spectator rather than a participant in the tragi-comedy of human existence. Indeed he has the perfect job for it, that of a film cameraman. Serafino is an observer, an impersonal tool of a new industry based on make-believe. All he has to do is turn the handle of his camera and watch. He has no part in what is going on and is so removed from life that the mauling of an actor by a tiger cannot deflect him from filming the action. The Notebooks of Serafino Gubbio is set in Rome circa 1915, partly on a film set, partly in the city.