Issue 67 - April 2010

New Books Published

Naguib Mahfouz, Dreams, transl. into Slovakian by Marek Brieška (Drewo a srd, Bratislava 2010), supported by Encounters Project

This is a collection of 104 dreams, dreamt and retold by Mahfouz, who appears in the dual position of “dreamer” and “author”. Some of the pieces are short surrealistic descriptions without any interpreting touch. Others sound more like elaborate night thoughts. There are also novella-like dreams, which consist of phantasm scenarios, colored by some autobiographical allusions. As a whole, the book sounds as a dream-diary, wavering between concrete and abstract, vividly realistic and visionary.

Gamal Al-Ghitani, Pyramid Texts, transl. into Slovakian by Marek Brieška (Baum, Slovakia 2010) supported by Encounters Project

The collection Pyramid texts is literally built as a pyramid. It consists of 14 pieces, each of which is shorter than the previous – the last one is just three words long and it says: “Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.” The whole concept is grounded in the mysterious form of the pyramid, made of internal paths. Gamal Al-Ghitani’s internal paths lead from pure narratives to mystical impressions, from threading through the visible to grasping the “unknowable”. A book of slow climbing and reading.