Synopses & Reviews
Cunning, fantastical tales about a Greek village of the imagination, from a startling new talentPanos Karnezis' remarkable stories are all set in the same nameless Greek village. His characters are the people who live there--the priest, the whore, the doctor, the seamstress, the mayor--and the occasional animal: a centaur, a parrot that recites Homer, a horse called History. Their lives intersect, as lives do in a small place, and they know each other's secrets: the hidden crimes, the mysteries, the little infamies that men commit.Karnezis observes his villagers with a worldly eye, and creates a place where magic invariably loses out to harsh reality, a place full of passion, cruelty, and deep reserves of black humor. These stories recall the masters of the form--the wit and sophisticated playfulness of Saki and the primal fatalism of Prosper Merimee--but they are utterly original and prove that Karnezis is one of the freshest new voices in English fiction.
Review
"Downright miraculous...spry and playful, sly and macabre...Karnezis's language is fresh, lyrical, natural... seduc[ing] you into its magically real and soon-to-be-spectral world."--
The New York Times Book Review"A deft stylist: clear and direct, yet subtly ironic...Like many of the masters of this genre--Guy de Maupassant, Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty--Karnezis is adept at delivering one startling surprise after another." --Los Angeles Times
"Fierce, twisted, darkly funny stories...[Karnezis] has a sharp, unsentimental eye for contemporary Greek life, while deftly adding intimations of the pagan past." --The New Yorker
"Sly, witty, fantastical, and tragic, with just a touch of something old-fashioned about them...A terrific read." --The Seattle Times
"What a find!...The fruit of an exceptional and leaping imagination...One searches for comparisons--what one might get if Kafka collaborated with Hal Hartley, Aesop, and Italo Calvino--but Karnezis's originality and freshness, his vivid turns of phrase, are his alone."--Annie Proulx
Synopsis
In a nameless Greek village, the lives of its citizens--the priest, the whore, the doctor, the seamstress, the mayor--and even its animals--a centaur, a parrot that recites Homer, a horse called History--are entwined. As their lives intersect, their hidden crimes, their little infamies, are revealed, in a place full of passion, cruelty, and deep reserves of black humor.
About the Author
Panos Karnezis was born in Greece in 1967. He moved to England in 1992 to study engineering, and worked in industry before he started to write. He was awarded an M.A. in creative writing by the University of East Anglia. He lives in London.