Snowdome

(Paperback)

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Snowdome is a tale of two histories.

It is the present. Tinnitus is the spirit of the age. William comes home, flicks the radio on, turns it up. His head is full of noise.' William and his friends live in Sydney, a mumbling city. They think about the future, and thinking hurts.

It is the future. Sydney has been emptied out by economic forces and re-opened as a museum. The museum guide's task is to describe the city's history to tourists. He can no longer tell is that history is true or if he has made it up. He hears the firmness in his voice on the cassette tapes and he keeps his doubts to himself.

Snowdome is among the finest intelligent fiction this country has to offer. There has never been anything like it published in Australia. Bernard Cohen's deadpan style is spiked with humour and wit. This novel blends a hip sensibility with a more enduring seriousness, a kind of compact Perec. Cohen has managed to build a mirror ball of contemporary living. TOM FLOOD.

Brilliant and importantly distinctive writing. BRENDA WALKER.

Author Bio

Bernard Cohen was born in Michigan in the United States in 1963. He went to school in Sydney and has a Bachelor of Arts (Communications), majoring in writing and textual studies, from the University of Technology, Sydney. He was awarded the first Master of Arts in Writing from the same university. Bernard's stories and articles have appeared in newspapers, magazines and literary journals in Australia, New Zealand and the US, and he has been prominent in performing and reading from his work in Sydney. His first book, Tourism, was published by Picador in 1992. He lives in the Blue Mountains outside Sydney, having returned from a six months residency at the Keesing Studio in Paris. His second novel, The Blindman's Hat received the 1996 Australian/Vogel Literary Award and was published in September 1997.