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Collected Poems by Susan Noble incorporates three collections of poems: The Dream of Stairs: A Poem Cycle; Inside the Stretch of My Heart; and Before and After the Darkness. To mark the fortieth anniversary of Susan's death, this comprehensive volume is being published in hardback, paperback and Kindle, making all her poems publicly available for the first time.The Dream of Stairs was privately printed as a posthumous memorial volume in 1975, a year after Susan's untimely death in 1974 at the age of 31. Having announced with typically light-hearted self-depreciation that 'The muse has struck me!', Susan wrote the poems in batches of half a dozen or more from 1965 onwards in what she described as manic bursts of creativity. But these poems are anything but light-hearted, and even a first reading will reveal clearly that levity is not on the menu in a universe 'Where there are no jokes / And people do not pretend.'Susan's output in the last ten years of her life was prolific, but when it came to compiling the poems, after a good deal of deliberation, a clear thematic structure and underlying development seemed to dictate the final order of that original poignant collection.There are a number of changes to the first edition: a slight reordering of the poems, minor amendments to the structure of the poem cycle, a revised, enhanced layout, and indexes of titles and first lines. More significantly, the original selection has been augmented by many additional poems, which clearly fit within the cycle thematically and structurally.Many of the poems in Inside the Stretch of My Heart were triggered by the quotidian experience of living and working in central London in the late 1960s and early 1970s, yet beneath the fragile surface of her acute observations of domestic and office life in the city, intensely spiritual insights are being played out, sometimes delicately, sometimes shockingly, but always movingly.The poems in the third collection in this volume, Before and After the Darkness, were written in the early 1970s, like those in Inside the Stretch of My Heart, and include a number of poems written in 1973 and 1974 in the months before Susan's death.Two further companion volumes are also being published: A Flock of Blackbirds (selected novellas and short stories); and her novel, Drifting Between Empty Tramlines.Profits from the sales of all six volumes are being donated to three charities: Mind, the Samaritans and Sane.Facsimiles of the original typescripts and manuscripts are available online at www.aesopbooks.com/susannobleAbout the authorBrought up in South London, Susan Noble was the second of three children. Her childhood was enriched by being part of our large and closely-knit Jewish family. Unfortunately stricken by polio (then known as infantile paralysis) in her early years, Susan went through life with a degree of physical handicap which she was to overcome with courage and determination.Educated at Croydon High School, Susan studied English at Somerville College, Oxford. After graduating, Susan worked in London, first at the Royal National Institute for the Blind, dictating books for transcription into Braille, and later at the National Central Library in London, where she qualified as a Chartered Librarian.Susan's exceptional sensitivity was reflected in the prolific outpouring of poems to be found in The Dream of Stairs, Inside the Stretch of My Heart and Before and After the Darkness. In these intense, haunting poems, she chronicles her personal response to the world around her, while vividly portraying the inner landscape of her mental and emotional struggle.

Before and After the Darkness is the third collection of poems by Susan Noble, following The Dream of Stairs: A Poem Cycle and Inside the Stretch of My Heart. To mark the fortieth anniversary of Susan's death, this volume is being published in hardback, paperback and Kindle, making all her poems publicly available for the first time. The Dream of Stairs was privately printed as a posthumous memorial volume in 1975, a year after Susan's untimely death in 1974 at the age of 31. Having announced with typically light-hearted self-depreciation that 'The muse has struck me!', Susan wrote the poems in batches of half a dozen or more from 1965 onwards in what she described as manic bursts of creativity. But these poems are anything but light-hearted, and even a first reading will reveal clearly that levity is not on the menu in a universe 'Where there are no jokes / And people do not pretend.' Susan's output in the last ten years of her life was prolific, but when it came to compiling the poems, after a good deal of deliberation, a clear thematic structure and underlying development seemed to dictate the final order of that original poignant collection. Many of the poems in Before and After the Darkness were triggered by the quotidian experience of living and working in central London in the late 1960s and early 1970s, yet beneath the fragile surface of her acute observations of domestic and office life in the city, intensely spiritual insights are being played out, sometimes delicately, sometimes shockingly, but always movingly. The poems in this volume were written in the early 1970s, like those in Inside the Stretch of My Heart, and include a number of poems written in 1973 and 1974 in the months before Susan's death. Two further companion volumes are also being published: A Flock of Blackbirds (selected novellas and short stories); and her novel, Drifting Between Empty Tramlines. Profits from the sales of all six volumes are being donated to three charities: Mind, the Samaritans and Sane. Facsimiles of the original typescripts and manuscripts are available online at www.aesopbooks.com/susannoble About the author Brought up in South London, Susan Noble was the second of three children. Her childhood was enriched by being part of our large and closely-knit Jewish family. Unfortunately stricken by polio (then known as infantile paralysis) in her early years, Susan went through life with a degree of physical handicap which she was to overcome with courage and determination. Educated at Croydon High School, Susan studied English at Somerville College, Oxford. After graduating, Susan worked in London, first at the Royal National Institute for the Blind, dictating books for transcription into Braille, and later at the National Central Library in London, where she qualified as a Chartered Librarian. Susan's exceptional sensitivity was reflected in the prolific outpouring of poems to be found in The Dream of Stairs, Inside the Stretch of My Heart and Before and After the Darkness. In these intense, haunting poems, she chronicles her personal response to the world around her, while vividly portraying the inner landscape of her mental and emotional struggle.

Drifting Between Empty Tramlines focuses on the lives of a group of twenty-something women in the fictional town of Bridchester near Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire in the 1970s. It was written in 1972 by Susan Noble, who died in 1974 at the age of 31.During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Susan worked in London, first at the Royal National Institute for the Blind and later at the National Central Library. Like the Bridchester Records Office in the novel, the NCL - based in Store Street, not far from the British Museum Library - was not open to the public. The atmosphere of the fictional records office, with all its gossip and backbiting, was almost certainly based on that of Susan's daily working life; the office forms the backdrop to the social, cultural, intellectual and emotional concerns of the central characters who grapple with a range of issues from mental illness to marriage and motherhood, their relationships, affairs and break-ups, their preoccupations over work and creativity, conflicts between feminism and traditional family roles, and between academia and 'lived experience'. And above all, throughout the novel, the question of what they should be doing with their lives.While it isn't hard to see traces of Jane Austen in its moral and social satire, Drifting Between Empty Tramlines also has elements of Bildungsroman and novels of ideas. The main protagonists - Anna, Margot, Paula, Alison, Dana and June - embody some of the defining concerns and issues for women during the tumultuous period of transition between the 1950s and 1970s, but in a much more autobiographical sense, each of these characters strikingly reflects different aspects of Susan's own personality. There are also intense moments of the kinds of spiritual perception and longing that may be found in her poems. Ultimately, though, the lives of these characters are all, in different ways, subverted by a sense of motivational uncertainty, which the novel's title so vividly expresses.Susan's output of fiction and poetry in the final ten years of her life was prolific and to mark the fortieth anniversary of her death, Drifting Between Empty Tramlines is being published in hardback, paperback and Kindle for the first time, along with four volumes of her poetry, The Dream of Stairs: A Poem Cycle; Inside the Stretch of My Heart; Before and After the Darkness; and Collected Poems, as well as a selection of her short stories and novellas, A Flock of Blackbirds.Profits from the sales of all six volumes are being donated to three charities: Mind, the Samaritans and Sane. Facsimiles of the original typescripts and manuscripts are available online at: www.aesopbooks.com/susannobleAbout the authorBrought up in South London, Susan was the second of three children. Her childhood was enriched by being part of our large and closely-knit Jewish family. Unfortunately stricken by polio (then known as infantile paralysis) in her early years, Susan went through life with a degree of physical handicap which she was to overcome with courage and determination. Educated at Croydon High School, Susan studied English at Somerville College, Oxford. After graduating, Susan worked in London, first at the Royal National Institute for the Blind, dictating books for transcription into Braille, and later at the National Central Library in London, where she qualified as a Chartered Librarian.Susan's exceptional sensitivity was reflected not only in the intense outpouring of poems to be found in The Dream of Stairs, Inside the Stretch of My Heart, and Before and After the Darkness, but also in the novel Drifting Between Empty Tramlines and the short story collection A Flock of Blackbirds. In both her poetry and her fiction, she chronicles her personal response to the world around her, while vividly portraying the inner landscape of her own mental and emotional struggle.

Inside the Stretch of My Heart is the companion volume to the collection The Dream of Stairs: A Poem Cycle, which was privately printed as a posthumous memorial volume in 1975, a year after Susan Noble's untimely death in 1974 at the age of 31.'The muse has struck me!' Susan had announced in 1965 with typically light-hearted self-depreciation, and from that time onwards she wrote the poems in batches of half a dozen or more, in what she described as manic bursts of creativity. But these poems are anything but light-hearted, and even a first reading will reveal clearly that levity is not on the menu in a universe 'Where there are no jokes / And people do not pretend.' Susan's output in the last ten years of her life was prolific, but a clear thematic structure and underlying development dictated the final order of that original poignant collection. To mark the fortieth anniversary of her death, the poems in this present collection have been published for the first time, along with a revised, expanded edition of The Dream of Stairs. A companion volume to these two poetry collections, A Flock of Blackbirds, featuring a selection of Susan's novellas and short stories, and her novel Between Empty Tramlines are also being simultaneously published.Susan's exceptional sensitivity was reflected in the prolific outpouring of poems that make up The Dream of Stairs and Inside the Stretch of My Heart. In these intense, haunting poems, she chronicles her personal response to the world around her, while vividly portraying the inner landscape of her mental and emotional struggle.Profits from the sales of all four volumes are being donated to three charities: Mind, the Samaritans and Sane. Facsimiles of the original typescripts and manuscripts are available online at: www.aesopbooks.com/susannoble About the author Brought up in South London, Susan Noble, was the second of three children. Her childhood was enriched by being part of a large and closely-knit Jewish family. Unfortunately stricken by polio (then known as infantile paralysis) in her early years, Susan went through life with a degree of physical handicap which she was to overcome with courage and determination. Educated at Croydon High School, Susan studied English at Somerville College, Oxford. After graduating, Susan worked in London, first at the Royal National Institute for the Blind, dictating books for transcription into Braille, and later at the National Central Library in London, where she qualified as a Chartered Librarian. -

A Dream of Stairs: A Poem Cycle was privately printed as a posthumous memorial volume in 1975, a year after Susan Angela Noble's untimely death in 1974 at the age of 31. Having announced with typically light-hearted self-depreciation, 'The muse has struck me!' Susan wrote the poems in batches of half a dozen or more, from 1965 onwards, in what she described as manic bursts of creativity. But these poems are anything but light-hearted, and even a first reading will reveal clearly that levity is not on the menu in a universe 'Where there are no jokes / And people do not pretend.' Susan's output in the last ten years of her life was prolific, but when it came to compiling the poems, after a good deal of deliberation, a clear thematic structure and underlying development seemed to dictate the final order of that original poignant collection.To mark the fortieth anniversary of Susan's death, this second edition, published in hardback, paperback and Kindle, makes the book publicly available for the first time. There are a number of changes to the first edition: a slight reordering of the poems, minor amendments to the structure of the poem cycle, a revised, enhanced layout, and indexes of titles and first lines. More significantly, the original selection has been augmented by many additional poems, which clearly fit within the cycle thematically and structurally. Three companion volumes are also being published: Inside the Stretch of My Heart (a collection of previously unpublished poems); A Flock of Blackbirds (selected novellas and short stories); and her novel, Between the Tramlines. Profits from the sales of all four volumes are being donated to three charities: Mind, the Samaritans and Sane. Facsimiles of the original typescripts and manuscripts are available online at: www.aesopbooks.com/susannobleAbout the authorBrought up in South London, Susan Noble, was the second of three children. Her childhood was enriched by being part of our large and closely-knit Jewish family. Unfortunately stricken by polio (then known as infantile paralysis) in her early years, Susan went through life with a degree of physical handicap which she was to overcome with courage and determination. Educated at Croydon High School, Susan studied English at Somerville College, Oxford. After graduating, Susan worked in London, first at the Royal National Institute for the Blind, dictating books for transcription into Braille, and later at the National Central Library in London, where she qualified as a Chartered Librarian.Susan's exceptional sensitivity was reflected in the prolific outpouring of poems that make up The Dream of Stairs and Inside the Stretch of My Heart. In these intense, haunting poems, she chronicles her personal response to the world around her, while vividly portraying the inner landscape of her mental and emotional struggle.

In Down from the Stars, John Fraser's latest speculative novel, an assistant to a distinguished astrophysicist, is tormented by the fate of the Soviet space dog, Laika, incinerated above the earth. Losing the confidence of his master, and losing his girlfriend, he is increasingly drawn into local political life. Having an affinity with the arts, he becomes responsible for the policy of art tourism, which, with organised crime, is the speciality of the place. After many adventures and disasters, and growing complicity with criminality, a new boss forces him and his associates to leave. Destitute, and disillusioned with science and art, he makes an approach to nature, visiting an African wildlife lodge. He is joined by an associate, a former dancer. Together, he decides, they will rise again, and resume their destinies as 'stars.'

The Case is John Fraser's latest fictional tour de force. It is a novelabout loss - loss of memory, of love, of money, of friends. Theprotagonist searches throughout the book for a suitcase - maybe valuable initself, maybe because it represents resources and a destination. The Casetakes us on a trip through the American dream, of wealth, cowboys andHollywood movies, and out the other side, to police shootouts, mortal dangerand revolution, on a quest for the missing case.'One of the most extraordinary publishing events of the past few years hasbeen the rapid, indeed insistent, appearance of the novels of John Fraser.There are few parallels in literary history to this almost simultaneous andlargely belated appearance of a mature ouvre, sprung like Athena from Zeus'sforehead. And the novels in themselves are extraordinary. I can think ofnothing much like it in fiction. Fraser maintains a masterfully ironicdistance from the extreme conditions in which his characters findthemselves. There are strikingly beautiful descriptions, veiled allusions torooted traditions, unlikely events half-glimpsed, abrupted narratives,surreal but somehow apposite social customs. Like Thomas Pynchon, whom insome way he resembles, Fraser is a deep and serious fantasist, wildlyinventive. The reader rides as on a switchback or luge of impetuousattention, with effects flashing by at virtuouso speeds. The characters seemto be unwitting agents of chaos, however much wise reflection the authorbestows upon them. They move with shrugging self-assurance throughcircumstances as richly detailed and as without reliable compass-points as aChinese scroll.' (John Fuller, English poet, novelist, Booker Prize nomineeand Fellow Emeritus at Magdalen College, Oxford)

Wayfaring is the latest of John Fraser's tour de forces in experimental fiction. It consists of three novellas, with the common theme of travelling in difficult places.'Coming in to Land on Saturn' is the (fictionalised) account of the extreme physical and psychological experiences of a trainee Intelligence operative.In 'Sometimes the Watchman Is Drunk' four people travel round the ethnically fragmented regions of Southern Yugoslavia before the wars of the 1990s. Faced with the imminence of communist breakup, the four turn to self-inquiry, as the future becomes more troubled and unreadable.'Coney Island' is the story of a godlike narrator who follows the fortunes of Stark and Pippa, unemployed but enterprising young friends. Many past and future scenarios of human destinies are explored.

The latest tour de force in speculative fiction from John Fraser. The 'Military Roads' of this book, which consists of three tales running consecutively, are, first, the adventures of a narrator following the fortunes of a leader of a revolution in a distant country: second, a journey starting in the 'military road' which in Soviet times and before, ran from Moscow to the Caucasus: and finally, a mission undertaken from Italy, through North Africa, with the aim of recruiting a private army of bodyguards for a global tycoon. The narrator's amorous adventures, and his struggles to survive these radical shifts of place, commitment and perspective, conclude with a sweet-and-sour relationship with his boss's partner, and a precarious acceptance of traditional religious practices. The military roads, it is supposed, will continue to be travelled, with results which never achieve a lasting resolution, but provide temporary satisfaction for some, at least, of the protagonists.

Meet The Hurtley Sisters - Sophie (aged 8) and Kate aged 6). They are full of fun and mischief and this book will tell you all about their adventures with their parents Bruce and Emma. Sophie and Kate are very clever for their age and both girls like reading, writing and arithmetic. Kate is the more daredevil of the two and loves climbing and jumping off furniture and swings and slides in the playground, Sophie is the more creative one. She loves to paint, draw and write stories. Like most young children they have grandparents. Granddad Colin is a clever man. He is retired now and has a hobby collecting plants from countries all over the world. He says one day he is going to write a book on his plants. Grandma Moira says we will believe that when we see it - we think she knows Granddad very well. In ten fun-filled, illustrated adventure stories, The Hurtley Sisters will delight and amuse children aged from four to eight. And each story is just the right length to make them wonderful bedtime reading.

'Death bed promises are not always easy to keep.'James O'Byrne is to discover this when he accepts his father's pocket watch and final request. But this is not just any pocket watch.It is dated '20.04.1940' and was presented to Adolf Hitler on his 50th birthday by Martin Bormann.And on the watch face there is an engraving of Hitler's face, above a swastika.Honouring Paddy O'Byrne dying wish involves Jamie in a series of dangerous and terrifying experiences, involving love, death, romance and adventure. From the East End of London to the mountains of Austria and the turquoise waters of the Seychelles Islands, the train of events culminates in the peat bogs of County Galway in the Mystic Isle of Ireland.

An Illusion of Sun is the first of John Fraser's 14 novels (12 published, two forthcoming). 'I wanted to do a novel that smelled of fascism (I hope not a fascist novel!) -' Fraser says '- the slaughterhouse, the canals, the fruit - every kind of South and Central European fascism, from Franco to Tiso and Dolfuss, its impregnation of other discourses, from "democracy" to "socialism". It was intended to show how that virus had penetrated the bourgeoisie, its philosophy and its theorists, the ornamental style itself the modesty veil thrown over.'The novel is located in a Slavonic Venice, a city in a state of decline. Perrina attempts to salvage her decaying palazzo both from the depradations of time and the ambiguous bureaucrats who seem to have designs on her as well as on the mansion. Torgano establishes a difficult and masochistic relation with Perrina, her concerns - and the city itself. A liberation seems to lie in leaving her and the city, but will this resolve anything?Of Fraser's unique writing, the distinguished poet John Fuller has commented: 'In Fraser's fiction the reader rides as on a switchback or luge of impetuous attention, with effects flashing by at virtuoso speeds. The characters seem to be unwitting agents of chaos, however much wise reflection Fraser bestows upon them; they move with shrugging self-assurance through circumstances as richly detailed and as without reliable compass-points as a Chinese scroll.'

John Fraser's last work of fiction, Hard Places, was a series of novellas concerning physical and moral dilemmas, left unresolved at the expense of the protagonist. This sequel, Soft Landing, is the opposite - a novel of quest and adventure, in which scruple is overcome, and demanding or impossible situations have outcomes favourable to the hero. The trail takes us from urban violence to Eldorado, the regime of a bikers' club, and the secret finds of a prospectors' camp. The last section shows all puzzles solved, and the protagonists' return home with gifts. In keeping with the tale's sour vision of a crumbling present, the landing though soft, is not pleasant.

Two novellas by John Fraser, Blue Light and Starting Over, conclude a quadrilogy whose previous volumes comprised The Red Tank, Runners and Medusa.We may like to imagine what the end of the world is like - it's not dissimilar to our own end. Blue Light shows what it's like, the running down, the onset of rigor mortis - and the new life sprouting, notwithstanding. Living for ever may not be too bad - but do you really want it? When the world has ended, how attractive is rebirth, or resurrection? Starting Over may mean you have to piece a whole new world together - just using the ruins of the past. The poet John Fuller writes: 'In Fraser's fiction the reader rides as on a switchback or luge of impetuous attention, with effects flashing by at virtuoso speeds. The characters seem to be unwitting agents of chaos, however much wise reflection Fraser bestows upon them; they move with shrugging self-assurance through circumstances as richly detailed and as without reliable compass-points as a Chinese scroll.'

A selection of short stories and poems together with the novella 'Black Masks'.

A novel set during a critical point in Soviet history, whose protagonists are young Soviet intellectuals, bright but not brilliant, confronting a future threatened with war and stagnation, but still with the impetus of post-Stalinist regeneration. It is not a chronicle of that period's debates between neo-Bolsheviks, Leninists, social and liberal democrats, Trotskyists, Westernisers and traditionalists. It depicts a more modest but more frequently encountered search for commitment, for a meaningful political and social life, in a vast country where light and darkness flicker and alternate unpredictably. Although it may be categorised as political fantasy, the real fantasy lies in the collapse of the aspirations which drove all the protagonists at the time.

Hard Places consists of three novellas, Red Snow, The Rock and The Sea. They concern human struggles with Nature and human natures. Red Snow involves efforts to have the better of chance by gaming, and the forms of self-discipline this requires. The Rock shows the eternal certainties of art crumbling into inexplicable absences and shady deals. The Sea evokes our longing for submersion in nature when we wish to conceal our misdeeds and rejections.

Poems of an Old Soldier is a a collection of 80 poems to amuse the public in general, and in many cases do not conform to any particular rhythm, rhyme, metre, pentameter or other poetic jargon. They are simply written for the reader to enjoy. In a long career in the army the author gained medals in Malaya and Aden and served also in Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Cyprus, Singapore and Europe. The proceeds of the book will be donated to Help the Heroes.

A riveting thriller, centring on the explosive truth behind the now widely accepted belief that the policies of the late Chairman Mao accounted for the death of fifty million of his countrymen.In the late 1970s a document indicting Mao was prepared, but kept under wraps by its authors for fear of creating turmoil in China and consequent international crisis. In 1978, a defector from mainland China is pursued to Hong Kong, bringing with him a copy of this extraordinary document. When Larry Fenton, a Western journalist, comes into possession of the document, he becomes a target of Western, Soviet and Chinese agencies determined to prevent him from publishing it., fearing that if this violent attack on the 'untouchable' Mao were to be revealed it could lead to an uncontrollable war scenario.

The latest literary tour-de-force from John Fraser. Three policy experts are at a conference, where their principals are swept away by a storm. One of the experts is held for ransom, but is released in time to join the others as they discuss the new, leaderless, dispensation. They try various strategies to achieve power - the ex-Yugoslav, suspected of war crimes, and possible under-age sexual misdemeanours, proposes infiltrating the bureaucracy, but is unsuccessful. The initiative seems to lie with Melinda, the best-connected expert, who is also an adventurous musician. They consider an incursion into the US, and China - both in crisis, with their populations and resources in disarray. They make various attempts at exploration - the third expert is involved in a complex inner odyssey, and seek inspiration from a young explorer, Niobe, and an academic, Delphine. The group, led by Melinda, eventually decide on an incursion into Southern China, with the aim of securing positions of power in the newly re-organised polity.

John Fraser's Medusa is a stunning fable for our times, in which the stories of Medusa, the Gorgon and the French ship Medusa are intertwined to create a Pilgrim's Progress for the 21st century.'Medusa is a trip, a bending of the legends. It is a symphonic poem, where at the end, we even hear a few notes of a hymn to joy. The fragments of myth, legend and belief drift round like harmonies that seek resolution. But this mode is post-modern, post-Christian; it is about the end - yet there is no end: it is story. The resulting tale is an apocryphal blast and a literary tour de force that uncannily captures the zeitgeist.' (Jean-Paul Bouler)'In Fraser's fiction the reader rides as on a switchback or luge of impetuous attention, with effects flashing by at virtuoso speeds. The characters seem to be unwitting agents of chaos, however much wise reflection Fraser bestows upon them; they move with shrugging self-assurance through circumstances as richly detailed and as without reliable compass-points as a Chinese scroll.' (John Fuller)

In Runners John Fraser delivers, in his unique, distinct voice, the story of a kind of redemption - even a kind of utopia - or as much of a utopia as we can possibly expect, given what we know about most of our political leaders ...An unelected leader buys the office of deputy mayor. Although this 'boss' is a monster, he also has a rare, enlightened side. Where other leaders cling to power, he runs - but instead of running for office, he runs from office; he and his friends become the Runners - the running dogs.Runners is a contemporary remake of Machiavelli's Prince with a nod to Gramsci's 'Modern Prince', the revolutionary party. It is a tale of complicity between leaders, the nature of political friendships and loyalties, the contradictions between leaders and electors, between democratic rhetoric and practice, the leadership and the base - the urban and feathered - the volatility, adaptability and motivations of leaders, and of the pursuit of justice in the personal, incongruous instance; the machismo of political culture.'In Fraser's fiction the reader rides as on a switchback or luge of impetuous attention, with effects flashing by at virtuoso speeds. The characters seem to be unwitting agents of chaos, however much wise reflection Fraser bestows upon them; they move with shrugging self-assurance through circumstances as richly detailed and as without reliable compass-points as a Chinese scroll.' (John Fuller)

The Red Tank is a contemporary literary novel by a dazzlingly inventive writer looking anew at the human project in the globalised 21st century as though from a Martian point of view, through myths, fables, utopias and dystopias of modern and future life.

A novel about political commitment and liberation, set around the year 1968 and reflecting the high season of Guevara in Bolivia and attempts to insert a revolutionary 'foco' in places where objective conditions were politically ripe, but where the subjective element, and the most rudimentary organisation, were absent. The would-be, self-transforming saviour pays with his life (and that of his comrades) in a situation where rectitude is on his side but the situation quite beyond his reach. Instead of violence, this political fable presents organisation, as against movimentismo, as a possible vehicle for the chiliastic transformation.