Título: Parasol Against the Axe: A Novel
Autor: Helen Oyeyemi
Sinopse: "A shape-shifting novel about the power of stories…Helen Oyeyemi is a literary pied piper — her voice is the kind that readers gamely follow into the most bewildering and unnerving of situations." – The New York Times
“A metatextual masterpiece.” —Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“Oyeyemi writes here as an heir to Calvino or Borges…A dizzying, dazzling romp.” —Kirkus Reviews
The prize-winning, bestselling author of Peaces and Gingerbread returns with a novel about competitive friendship, the elastic boundaries of storytelling, and the meddling influence of a city called Prague
In Helen Oyeyemi’s joyous new novel, the Czech capital is a living thing—one that can let you in or spit you out.
For reasons of her own, Hero Tojosoa accepts an invitation she was half expected to decline, and finds herself in Prague on a bachelorette weekend hosted by her estranged friend Sofie. Little does she know she’s arrived in a city with a penchant for playing tricks on the unsuspecting. A book Hero has brought with her seems to be warping her mind: the text changes depending on when it’s being read and who’s doing the reading, revealing startling new stories of fictional Praguers past and present. Uninvited companions appear at bachelorette activities and at city landmarks, offering opinions, humor, and even a taste of treachery. When a third woman from Hero and Sofie’s past appears unexpectedly, the tensions between the friends’ different accounts of the past reach a new level.
An adventurous, kaleidoscopic novel, Parasol Against the Axe considers the lines between illusion and delusion, fact and interpretation, and weighs the risks of attaching too firmly to the stories of a place, or a person, or a shared history. How much is a tale influenced by its reader, or vice versa? And finally, in a battle between friends, is it better to be the parasol or the axe?
Contexto da obra
Como livro em inglês, esta obra costuma ganhar também uma camada própria de interesse editorial e linguístico. “Parasol Against the Axe: A Novel”, de Helen Oyeyemi, publicado pela editora Riverhead Books, em 2024 e com 272 páginas, integra a categoria Livros em Inglês. Por isso, o interesse da obra tende a se ampliar quando o leitor considera também a relação com a língua em que ela circula.
Editora: Riverhead Books
Páginas: 272
Ano: 2024
Edição:
Linguagem: en
ISBN: 0593192362
ISBN13: 9780593192368
Sobre a editora
Os livros da editora Riverhead Books apresentam uma variedade de narrativas que exploram tanto a complexidade das relações humanas quanto reflexões profundas sobre ciência, história e cultura. A experiência de leitura frequentemente envolve personagens em transição — seja na passagem da juventude para a vida adulta, em crises pessoais ou em contextos históricos marcantes —, com um tom que varia do introspectivo ao envolvente. O catálogo sugere obras que combinam histórias densas e multifacetadas, ora com ritmo mais narrativo e emocional, ora com abordagens mais informativas e analíticas, como em relatos científicos ou biográficos.
