Lutz Bassmann

Dvoe muzhchin i zhenschina, kotorye edva znajut drug druga, puteshestvujut v temnote, nastupivshej posle ikh smerti. Oni dolzhny nauchitsja sosuschestvovat v etom besprosvetnom mire, gde stalkivajutsja ne tolko s tmoj - vremja zdes to rastjagivaetsja, to szhimaetsja, no, prezhde vsego, preryvaetsja. Chtoby nametit orientiry v svoem puteshestvii, oni rasskazyvajut drug drugu istorii. No kakovo by ni bylo soderzhanie etikh istorij - zakhvatyvajuschie prikljuchenija, nasilie, mest, mechty, kriminalnye missii - oni preryvajutsja v seredine dejstvija. Rozhdajutsja obrazy, vspykhivajut sjuzhety, no vnezapno vmeshivaetsja tainstvennaja sila i bezzhalostno razrushaet povestvovanie. Lutts Bassman, rodivshijsja v 1952 godu v Elgave (Latvija) i s 1990 goda otbyvajuschij pozhiznennoe zakljuchenie, javljaetsja odnim iz postekzoticheskikh alter ego frantsuzskogo pisatelja Antuana Volodina. Upomjanutyj snachala kak geroj odnogo iz sochinenij, on vskore opublikoval tselyj rjad proizvedenij raznykh zhanrov - ot romanov do sokljatij i skaznej.

Tassili, Goodmann, and Myriam. Two men and a woman dressed in rags--former poets, and former members of a dystopian military service--walk the Bardo, the dark afterlife between death and rebirth. The road is monotonous and seemingly endless. To pass the time, they decide to tell each other stories: bizarre anecdotes set in a post-apocalyptic world, replete with mutant creatures, Buddhist monks, and ruthless killers. The result is a mysterious, dreamlike series of events, trapped outside of time as we know it, where all the rules of narrative are upended and remade. Lutz Bassmann is one of the heteronyms of French author Antoine Volodine. Black Village gives readers of science fiction and experimental literature another exciting look into "post-exoticism," one of the most ambitious and original projects in contemporary literature.

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.