This October, join Archipelago Books and Mircea Cărtărescu in Toronto to celebrate the forthcoming publication of his powerful, phantasmagoric novel Blinding, published for the first time in English by Archipelago Books. Hailed by Die Zeit as a “literary coup,” Blinding was one of the most widely heralded literary sensations in contemporary Romania, and a bestseller from the day of its release.
Join Archipelago Books and author Mircea Cărtărescu at the Harbourfront International Festival of Authors for a reading and signing of the first volume of his Blinding!
Mircea Cărtărescu at Harbourfront International Festival of Authors
Thursday, October 24, 2013, 5 PM – 7 PM
Harbourfront Literary Festival
235 Queens Quay, Toronto, ON M5J 2G8
Book description
Part visceral dream-memoir, part fictive journey through a hallucinatory Bucharest, Mircea Cărtărescu’s Blinding was one of the most widely heralded literary sensations in contemporary Romania, and a bestseller from the day of its release. Riddled with hidden passageways, mesmerizing tapestries, and whispering butterflies, Blinding takes us on a mystical trip into the protagonist’s childhood, his memories of hospitalization as a teenager, the prehistory of his family, a traveling circus, Secret police, zombie armies, American fighter pilots, the underground jazz scene of New Orleans, and the installation of the communist regime. This kaleidoscopic world is both eerily familiar and profoundly new. Readers of Blinding will emerge from this strange pilgrimage shaken, and entirely transformed.
Book praise
- “Cărtărescu’s phantasmagorical world is similar to Dalí’s dreamscapes.” —Kirkus Reviews
- “[Cărtărescu is] a writer who has always had a place reserved for him in a constellation that includes the Brothers Grimm, Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, Bruno Schulz, Julio Cortázar, Gabriel García Márquez, Milan Kundera, and Milorad Pavic, to mention just a few.” —Andrei Codrescu
- A gigantic literary coup … Wild and heedless, here is a still unpruned author on a spiritual quest, for which in its anarchistic rampancy there is currently no equivalent in western literature. — Die Zeit
- Cartarescu’s is taking Europe by storm, with nostalgia leading the way and garnering prize after prize in France, Italy, German… — Christian Moraru, American Review
- Gripping, impassioned, unexpected—the qualities that the best in literature possesses. — Thomas McGonigle, Los Angeles Times Book Review
- If George Lucas were a poet, this is how he would write. — Benjamin Lytal, New York Sun
Links
- Blinding – http://archipelagobooks.org/book/blinding/
- Buy – http://archipelagobooks.org/product/blinding-book-one/
- Archipelago Books – http://archipelagobooks.org/
- Harbourfront International Festival of Authors – http://ifoa.org/
