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Parasol Against the Axe
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Dorje Swallow
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
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Parasol Against the Axe
Narrated by:
Dorje Swallow
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Publisher's Summary
NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR BY ELLE, THE SEATTLE TIMES, LITERARY HUB, THE MILLIONS AND MORE!
“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 Book Review
A tale of competitive friendship, elastic 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 Cibulkova. 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?
“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 Book Review
A tale of competitive friendship, elastic 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 Cibulkova. 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?
©2024 Helen Oyeyemi (P)2024 Hamish Hamilton
What the critics say
“Oyeyemi writes here as an heir to Calvino or Borges. . . . A dizzying, dazzling romp.” —Kirkus Reviews
“A terrific mercurial work. Oyeyemi has mastered the art of bold, expansive storytelling.” —Irenosen Okojie
“Bold, lucid, and experimental. . . Oyeyemi delightfully channels a Borgesian literary lunacy . . . This is a metatextual masterpiece.” —Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW