Tuesday, March 5, 2019

#GIVEAWAY Showcase Women by Mihail Sebastian Other Press


Today I'm showcasing a fantastic sounding novel, Women, by renowned author Mihail Sebastian that Kirkus calls edgy and compelling. Despite having been written in the 1930s, the four interlocking stories of WOMEN feel fresh and contemporary – especially on the roles of women and stigmas on sex – and exceedingly relatable.
Other Press is sponsoring a #giveaway of this novel, details below

ISBN-13:  978-1-59051-955-4
Publisher: Other Press
Release Date: 3-5-2019
Length: 192pp
Buy It: Amazon/B&N/Kobo/IndieBound


ADD TO: GOODREADS

Overview:
A rediscovered classic from the author of For Two Thousand Years, this remarkable novel presents nuanced snapshots of love in the early twentieth century.

Stefan Valeriu, a young Romanian man who has just completed his medical studies in Paris, spends his vacation in the Alps, where he quickly becomes entangled with three different women. We follow Stefan after his return to Paris as he reflects on the women in his life, at times playing the lover, and at others observing shrewdly from the periphery.

Women’s four interlinked stories offer moving, strikingly modern portraits of romantic relationships in all their complexity, from unrequited loves and passionate affairs to tepid marriages of convenience. In the
same eloquent style that would characterize his later, more political writings, Mihail Sebastian explores longing, otherness, empathy, and regret.



Other Press is offering
one print copy of
Women US ONLY
Please use Rafflecopter form to enter
Good Luck!


Excerpt:

He’s taken a boat from the guesthouse’s jetty, rowed to where the lake opens out and the view of the steep valley in the mountains looks symmetrical, and dropped anchor and flopped down on the bottom of the boat, with the oars dangling in the wavelets. Lazy and without a care, floating in the vast emptiness. He closes his eyes. He is engulfed by sunlight.

Earlier, in the common room, he again saw the young couple that recently arrived at the guesthouse and have taken the room situated on its own, across from the main building. A honeymoon, probably. She’s impressive. She had entered shyly, her eyes and the hint of negligence in her attire suggesting to Stefan that she’d spent a torrid night. The aroma she left behind her seemed to fill the entire building. An aroma redolent of a sensual nest with warm pillows, and a sleepy female body you find yourself making love to in the gentle morning light.

—It’s intolerable! It’s contagious! There should be a law against it! says Stefan aloud to himself. In reply, a wavelet slaps the boat, a distant swimmer shouts something, and in the town the clock of the church of Saint François de Sales strikes ten.

Praise for Mihail Sebastian:


[T]his scintillating novel—a fiery coming-of-age story introduced to the combustible material of extremist politics—which wrestles with the question of how one should live in the face of hatred... [T]he passage of time has also added gravity to a story that foreshadows yet cannot quite envision the genocide on the horizon.” —WALL STREET JOURNAL

“Sebastian, born in 1907, was a writer deeply immersed in the intellectual life of Romania in the interwar decades, and his book chillingly foreshadows the rise of authoritarianism in his country.” —NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, EDITORS’ CHOICE

“His prose is like something Chekov might have written – the same modesty, candor, and subtleness of observation.”

—Arthur Miller

About the author:


Mihail Sebastian is one of the most important Romanian writers of the twentieth century. Born in Romania in 1907 as Iosef Hechter, he worked as a lawyer and writer, being part of an influential literary circle that included the historian of religion Mircea Eliade, the playwright Eugene Ionesco and the philosopher Emil Cioran. Anti-Semitic legislation eventually



About the translator:

Philip Ó Ceallaigh is the author of two collections of short stories, Notes from a Turkish Whorehouse and The Pleasant Light of Day. His work has been translated into ten languages and adapted for cinema, and he has received the 2006 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. He lives in Bucharest, Romania


a Rafflecopter giveaway

16 comments:

  1. Thanks for showcasing this Debbie!

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    1. it was my pleasure as I love this publisher's offerings

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  2. Thanks for this memorable and unforgettable giveaway which I would enjoy, treasure and appreciate greatly. A work of art from an era which appeals to me and is unique.

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  3. That sounds like an interesting story.

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  4. I love when stories are able to transcend time.

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  5. Thanks for the post and info on this author. Sounds like an interesting read.

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