Agnomia
Published on 31. January 2019
Book
Paperback/Softback
272 pages
978-1-62897-279-5 (ISBN)
Description
In this miniature masterpiece, Robert Gal-whom Joshua Cohen has called "a phenomenon"-conducts a noble experiment in uncategorizable prose. One long, unbroken paragraph, blending memoir, fiction, and philosophy, Agnomia takes the reader on a transcontinental journey from Lower Manhattan to the Little Quarter of Prague, but most of all it takes the reader on a tour of the writer's mind. Meditations on tautology, sexuality, and art culminate in an attentive evocation of a concert given by the composer and saxophonist John Zorn. For readers of Thomas Bernhard, Georges Bataille, and E. M. Cioran, Agnomia is a book to relish.
Reviews / Votes
"In our millennium, a time of reduction and minimization, the aphorism has rightly returned. Its master is Robert Gal." * The Forward * "The Czech Cioran . . ." * Andrei Codrescu * "Gal is a phenomenon unto himself: a purveyor of neurotic philosophy encapsulated in elliptical portents and epifragmentals, the content of which is at all odds with their length." * Joshua Cohen * "Gal's aphorisms combine incisive question-raising and gently troubling images involving Time, God... and existential self-awareness." * Antioch Review *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Normal, IL
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 177 mm
Width: 126 mm
Thickness: 12 mm
Weight
102 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-62897-279-5 (9781628972795)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Robert Gal was born in Bratislava, Slovakia, in 1968. After living in Brno, New York, Jerusalem, and Berlin, among other places, he now resides in Prague. In his books of aphorisms and fiction, he has shown himself to be one of the major Slovakian writers of the twenty-first century. His book of aphorisms On Wing was published by Dalkey Archive Press in 2015.