Putin's Postbox (Paperback)

Paperback. Eight essays on literature, language, art, Europe and life from one of Germanys most revered living writers. After a visit to Putins old postbox, the reader is taken to Dresden and Brixton, Gdansk and Minsk, diverted to birds, bees, stray cats and pet dogs, confronted with Stasi and KGB, Proust and Jah Shaka, puzzled by overcoats and anoraks, Francis Bacon and Vermeer, and lost (then found) in service stations and memorial centres. Throughout, Marcel Beyer forges unexpected links and makes unpredictable leaps. I work from the margins, partly very literally as I build my sentences, for instance when I start with the name of a colour rather than a noun, to explore how the sentence might be steered from there to a subject. In my reading, I am drawn to the outliers or, as malicious claims would have it, to the obscure. Central books: that is, those everyone can agree on, have never much interested me. I am rarely tempted to explore the centre of my world in writing, and even if I did want to encroach upon a centre, I would have to choose a path from the outside. But outside, too, one advances to the heart of things. 'Reading Beyer, you begin to look more closely at the things around you and tobe more patient in trusting your own associations and digressions.' Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…