Before the Feast

(Hardback)

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Description

It's the night before the feast in the village of Frstenfelde (population: an odd number). The village is asleep. Except for the ferryman - he's dead. And Mrs Kranz, the night-blind painter, who wants to depict her village for the first time at night. A bell-ringer and his apprentice want to ring the bells - the only problem is that the bells have gone. A vixen is looking for eggs for her young, and Mr Schramm is discovering more reasons to quit life than smoking. Someone has opened the doors to the Village Archive, but what drives the sleepless out of their houses is not that which was stolen, but that which has escaped. Old stories, myths and fairy tales are wandering about the streets with the people. They come together in a novel about a long night, a mosaic of village life, in which the long-established and newcomers, the dead and the living, craftsmen, pensioners and noble robbers in football shirts bump into each other. They all want to bring something to a close, in this night before the feast.

Reviews

Episodic, impressionistic and whimsical... clever and funny -- Tibor Fischer The Guardian Switching among styles with a dancing virtuosity, Stanisic knits a dozen characters into a multi-stranded tissue of gossip, myth and memory... [layering] tales from past and present into a late-summer night's dream... Stanisic makes a dream team with Anthea Bell, who translates with a pitch-perfect ear for every twist and frisk of his German... its sheer versatility of voice and multiplicity of viewpoint mean that this vigil never drags -- Boyd Tonkin Independent A brilliant, quirky entertainment Kirkus Exceptional... cleverly done, and so mesmerising from the off... beautifully written... thought-provoking and energetic Big Issue Offensively gifted... some kind of freak genius Irish Examiner A book like few others. Politically well-versed and stylistically a work of art Die Zeit In literature anything goes, if one can do it. Sasa Stanisic proves, with Before the Feast: he can Welt am Sonntag In Before the Feast Sasa Stanisic tells a story as if there were no tomorrow. His novel is the event of the Spring Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung A storyteller with an infinite well of resources Spiegel Is one allowed to accuse an author of knowing how good he is, when, after all, he is so damned good taz A furious tragicomedy Spiegel Online A highly talented, passionate storyteller Taz In its combination of the fantastic, the menacing and the inexplicable, it reminded me of nothing so much as A Midsummer Night's Dream filtered through the uncanny lens of Welcome to Night Vale Elle Thinks A furious choral song in prose 2014 Leipzig Book Fair Prize Jury A gifted storyteller Village Voice Unforgettable characters, joyfully inventive storytelling... wise,highly entertaining and full of chutzpah Die Welt

Author Bio

The award-winning novelist Sasa Stanisic was born in Visegrad, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in 1978 and has lived in Germany since 1992. His debut novel, How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone was acclaimed by readers and critics alike, and has been translated into 30 languages so far. Before the Feast, his second novel, won the 2014 Leipzig Book Fair Prize, was longlisted for the German Book Prize, and won the Alfred-Doblin and Hohenemser literary prizes.