Eleven Sooty Dreams

( French - Onze rêves de suie -2010 )

novel by Manuela Draeger

translated by J.T. Mahane

Published: Open Letter - trade paperback - 2021
ISBN: 1948830264 / 9781948830263

Open Letter - e-book- 2021
eISBN: 1948830345 / 9781948830348


synopsis
A group of young leftists trapped in a burning building after one year’s Bolcho Pride parade plunge back into their childhood memories, trading them with each other as their lives are engulfed in flames. They remember Granny Holgolde’s stories of the elephant Marta Ashkarot, who travels through the Bardo to find her home and be reincarnated again and again. They remember the Soviet folk singer Lyudmila Zykina and her melancholic, simple songs of unspeakable beauty. They remember the half-human birds Granny Holgolde called strange cormorants, the ones who knew how to live in fire, secrecy, and death, and as the flames grow they hope to become them.

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