Showing titles in Absurdist

Phantastisches und Unheimliches, Paradoxes und Absurdes: Kafka beschreibt die unglaublichsten Sachverhalte nüchtern und minutiös. Grenzbereiche werden ausgeleuchtet, existenzielle Grund- oder Ausnahmesituationen in unvergessliche Bilder gefasst. Seine Texte haben die gleiche Intensität wie Träume.

Urkomisch, tragisch, berührend – ein echter Hendrik Groen. Als sein Chef sich mit großem Bedauern von ihm verabschiedet, steht für Arthur Ophof fest: So kann es nicht weitergehen. Dreiundzwanzig Jahre im Toilettenpapiervertrieb, im Reihenhaus eines Örtchens nahe Amsterdam, in der Ehe mit seiner lieben, sanften, verständnisvollen Frau Afra – damit ist jetzt Schluss. Und so stirbt Arthur. Natürlich nicht wirklich, vielmehr fädelt er ein, was es für ein plausibles Ableben einzufädeln gilt. Aus Arthur Ophof wird Luigi Molima. Nur hat er die Rechnung ohne Afra gemacht.

Salman Rushdies Quichotte ist ein Reisender, der besessen ist von der "unwirklichen Wirklichkeit" des Fernsehens. Er will das Herz der Königin der Talkshows erobern und begibt sich auf eine Reise quer durch Amerika, um sich ihrer als würdig zu erweisen; auf dem Beifahrersitz, Sancho, der Sohn, den er sich immer gewünscht hat. Rushdie nimmt Quichottes Abenteuer mit in unsere verrückte Gegenwart.

Ulisse è un giovane scrittore in crisi creativa (un tempo ha scritto un libro ma si è fermato lì), lavora in una casa editrice sull'orlo del collasso ed è innamorato di Pilar-Penelope, una bellissima immigrata senza permesso di soggiorno (ma non rinuncia alla sua inveterata poligamia). Un giorno riceve la lettera di uno sconosciuto che lo invita a un misterioso appuntamento. Ulisse, incuriosito, risponde e conosce Achille, un ragazzo gravemente malato che gli apre un mondo inatteso di assurdità, vitalità e dolore.

C'era una volta un uomo fatto di salsicce. E c'era una volta una ragazza vegetariana. L'uomo fatto di salsicce aggredisce la ragazza vegetariana. La ragazza vegetariana torna a casa col sangue che cola lungo le cosce, sutura la ferita con ago e filo e prova a fare come se niente fosse. Ma fare come se niente fosse è difficile, perché l'uomo fatto di salsicce non smette di perseguitarla: spiandola dal bosco vicino a scuola, affacciandosi a una finestra, spuntando da un lampione.

At the turn of the 20th century, as he composes a treatise on melancholy, Jacov Reinhardt sets off from his small Croatian village in search of his hero and unwitting mentor, Emiliano Gomez Carrasquilla, who is rumored to have disappeared into the South American jungle - "not lost, mind you, but retired." Jacov's narcissistic preoccupation with melancholy consumes him, and as he desperately recounts the myth of his journey to his trusted but ailing scribe, hope for an encounter with the lost philosopher who holds the key to Jacov's obsession seems increasingly unlikely.

Botanist Alfred Homer, ever hopeful and constantly surprised, is invited on a road trip by his parents’ friend, Professor Morgan Bruno, who wants company as he tries to unearth the story of the mysterious poet John Skennen. But this is no ordinary road trip. Alfred and the Professor encounter towns where Black residents speak only in sign language and towns that hold indigenous parades; it is a land of house burnings, werewolves, and witches.

More than 500 years before his friendship with Kitty, noble Ricardo de Avila's life met a fate-changing twist, and his morally complex, blood-soaked existence as an immortal began. Before being turned, Ricardo de Avila would have followed Coronado to the ends of the earth. Instead he found the end of his mortal life - and a new one, as a renegade vampire. For over 500 years as an immortal, Ricardo has followed his own moral code, upsetting the established order in the demon world.

After a domestic terrorist unleashes a dirty bomb in Manhattan in 1970, making the borough uninhabitable, FBI Agent Uli Sarkisian finds himself in a world that is suddenly unrecognizable, as the United States faces its greatest immigration crisis ever: finding housing for millions of its own citizens. The federal government hastily retrofits an abandoned government installation in the Nevada desert. Despite the government's best intentions, as the military pulls out of "Rescue City", the residents are increasingly left to their own devices, and tribal gang warfare fuses with democracy.

It’s never too late to get back on track. Michael is a broken man. He’s waiting for the 09.46 to Gloucester, so as to reach Crewe for 11.22: the platforms are long at Crewe, and he can walk easily into the path of a high-speed train to London. He’s planned it all: a net of tangerines (for when the refreshments trolley is cancelled), and a juice carton full of neat whisky. To make identification swift, he has taped his last credit card to the inside of his shoe.

A parallel universe. South Texas. Narcotics are legal, and there’s a new contraband on the market: ancient Olmec artifacts, shrunken indigenous heads, and filtered animals - species of animals brought back from extinction to clothe, feed, and generally amuse the very wealthy. Esteban Bellacosa has lived in the border town of MacArthur long enough to know to keep quiet. But his simple life starts to get complicated when the swashbuckling investigative journalist Paco Herbert invites him to come to an illegal underground dinner serving filtered animals.

Blending the piercing humor of Alexandra Kleeman and the jagged satire of Black Mirror, an audacious, eerily prescient debut novel that chronicles the rise and fall of a massive high-rise housing complex, and the lives it affected before - and after - its demise. Standing nearly 500 stories tall, Los Verticalés once bustled with life and excitement. Now this marvel of modern architecture and nontraditional urban planning has collapsed into a pile of rubble known as the Heap.

Before Derek Christian became the confused hero, pawn of the universe, and reluctant cosmic adventurer of the Intergalactic novels, he was a simple copywriter at a radio station in Atlanta, WRFA: Radio Free America. This story tells how his writer's block set off a domino effect of murder and cosmic intrigue as The Fear chases him to his breaking point, and how he manages to escape into a world not of his own making.

Size matters. Or at least it does to Ed, nitpicking quantity surveyor and captain of his local pub football team who has faked a business trip abroad to get some cheap plastic surgery. Ed intends to be even more of a man upon his return. But has he managed to keep this as secret as he thinks? Will this really be such a wonderful surprise for Fiona on their wedding night? And just who is this operation for anyway?

Due anni, otto mesi e ventotto notti. Il tempo in cui le regole del mondo si rovesciano e strani, inspiegabili fenomeni iniziano ad accadere sulla terra: un giardiniere dal passato tormentato si alza una mattina levitando, un disegnatore di fumetti si trova obbligato allo scontro con il suo personaggio più riuscito, in una sala del municipio viene trovata una neonata dai poteri soprannaturali, un compositore lancia inquietanti profezie, e una giovane e seducente cacciatrice d'oro viene assoldata per una guerra al di là di ogni immaginazione.

An anthropologist and his daughter travel to Kermunkachunk, the capitol of Chalazia, to conduct research for an ethnography on the Chalazian Mafia Faction (a splinter group of the Chalazian Children's Theater). The book takes place over the course of a night at the Bar Pulpo, Kermunkachunk's #1 spoken-word karaoke bar, where conversations are actually being read from multiple karaoke screens arrayed around the barroom. Moreover, it's Thursday, "Father/Daughter Nite", when the bar is frequented by actual fathers and daughters as well as couples cosplaying fathers and daughters.

Follow Alice as she tumbles into a world where hats are mad, cats vanish mid-sentence, and queens take croquet far too seriously. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland isn't just a book—it's a portal into delightful absurdity, linguistic acrobatics, and the kind of dream logic only Lewis Carroll could conjure. With wit sharper than the Queen's axe and characters as bizarre as your strangest dreams, this is the ultimate escape for the logically exhausted and the wonderfully curious. Step through the looking... no, wait—that's another story. Just follow the White Rabbit.

Armand Bernal is breaking apart. The trials of youth become a torrential odyssey of dislocation and disorientation. In this bildungsroman for our modern age—an age of collapse—Ben Faulkner has created an unforgettable character wary of work, college, relationships, and the world at large, becoming an unstable young man moving toward an act of terrifying violence. Will he survive the gothic America of The Agonies?

Clay Donovan thought dying was the end of his troubles, but fate isn’t done with him yet. Assigned as a temporary Death Walker, he makes one reckless decision—sparing the life of a social media influencer. Now, death is out of balance, and every life saved means another is lost. Now, something ancient and unforgiving is watching, waiting, and Clay is running out of time to fix his mistake before the cost becomes permanent.

Un día Matías Pascal, bibliotecario en Sicilia, lee en un periódico la florida reseña de su propia muerte. Toda la novela es una profunda reflexión sobre la constante pugna por establecer una identidad definida y tener un lugar bien definido en el mundo.