A House in Istria: Novel - Hardcover

Paterson, Anna; Swartz, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0811215016 ISBN 13: 9780811215015

Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2002

Synopsis

Never before translated into English, the wonderfully comic novel A House in Istria concerns marriage, a man's desperate desire to acquire the house next door, and what can happen when West meets East. In formerly communist Eastern Europe, there are many empty houses. Inhabited in turn by very different familiesJews, fascists, communiststhe houses now stand empty, decaying, the objects of countless lawsuits. Richard Swartz's quirky and marvelous first novel revolves around one such house and the Western European man obsessed with it. Narrated by his wife, the action takes place over just seven blazing hot days in Istria, formerly Yugoslavia. His obsession drags his poor wife, a native of Istria, into long burlesque conversations with lawyers and owners; her out-of-control husband (who doesn't speak the language) involves them in surreal scenes with nearly insane characters. Since everything the husband knows (and everything the reader knows) must be channeled through the wife, we enter a world in which nothing is directly intelligibleand everything is skewed. The unusual, antic, hilarious style calls Capek, Gogol, and Kafka all to mind.

About this title

About the Author

Unni Wikan is professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo, Norway, and is the author of nine books. Her most recent work in English is "Generous Betrayal: Politics of Culture in the New Europe," also published by the University of Chicago Press. Anna Paterson is the author of "Scotland's Landscape: Endangered Icon,"

Edition details

• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0811215016
• ISBN 13: 9780811215015
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224