Mircea Eliade: Time, Death, and the Unspeakable Secret

Translated from Romanian by Mac Linscott Ricketts, Edited by Bryan Rennie

Istros Books

The Romanian writer Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) is best known in the English-speaking world as an influential Historian of Religion, author of such works as The Sacred and the Profane and The Myth of the Eternal Return. However, Eliade’s body of work is much broader, and throughout his life he kept the world of fiction and mysticism very close to his heart. Starting at the age of fourteen, Eliade continuously produced works of fiction alongside his academic work.
This volume consists of six of his best short stories, taken from over a 30-year period, starting in 1959 with “A Fourteen-Year-Old Photograph” – the tale of a distance healing in which the patient claims miracle while the healer admits artifice – and including perhaps his most famous short story, the time-shifting “At the Gypsies,” and culminating with “In the Shadow of a Lily,” the last story Eliade is known to have written. Each of these stories is dense with allusions and interwoven with connections and references drawn from the imagination and vast knowledge of a great man. Who knows what secrets they may conceal? One thing is for sure – they will repay repeated close reading, but will also charm on the first encounter.

 

 

Confingo Publishing is launching The Crib and Other Stories, by Albertine Sarrazin, translated from the French by Sonya Moor.

Confingo Publishing is launching The Crib and Other Stories, by Albertine Sarrazin, translated from the French by Sonya Moor.

These short stories, which appear in English for the first time, were composed for the most part in prison, before Sarrazin’s novels were published to international acclaim in 1965. Here, Sarrazin turns her singular eye on the prison environment, charting the cruelties, small kindnesses, constraints and paradoxical freedoms of daily life in prison. By turns astute, tender and wryly humorous, Sarrazin presents a panorama ranging from the dangers
of ‘favours’ and clandestine letters, to the delights of illicit coffee and self-imposed creative limits. Sarrazin’s stories swoop the quotidian into the epic, as officers, inmates, and alter egos play out, in the small world of the prison, their comédie humaine. Against this backdrop emerges Sarrazin’s own personal battle: to be, and express, herself.

Best British Short Stories 2024 edited by Nicholas Royle

Salt Press has recently published Best British Short Stories 2024, edited by Nicholas Royle. It features stories by Alan Beard, Kevin Boniface, Paul Brownsey, Claire Carroll, ECM Cheung, Jonathan Coe, Rosie Garland, Kerry Hadley-Pryce, Timothy Jarvis, Cynan Jones, Bhanu Kapil, Sonya Moor, Alison Moore, Gregory Norminton, Nicholas Royle, Cherise Saywell, Kamila Shamsie, Ben Tufnell, Charlotte Turnbull and Cate West.

 

Precipitation, by Ailsa Cox, with images by Patricia Farrell

Precipitation is a collection of three stories by Ailsa Cox, two of which are published for the first time. It also features images created by the artist Patricia Farrell in response to the stories. The book is the fifth in a series of collaborations between writers and artists – the first, Interpolated Stories by David Rose and Leah Leaf, was published in 2022.

Set mostly in North West England, with excursions to Wales, Paris and the Arabian desert, these stories map the inner and outer world of their characters, excavating layers of time and memory. Two of the stories take place on the fictional street of Bethel Brow, where a grandmother nurses a long-held grievance, while two young incomers live the dream of a house in the country. In the third, the thwarted ambitions of a disappointed novelist take him on an imaginary journey.

Sharply observed and often darkly comic, they hinge upon those small moments that can change your life for ever – a missed train, a turn in the weather, or a puzzling encounter with a neighbour.

Publication: 9 January 2025 | Pre-order: Confingo Publishing | Manchester Book Publisher.