Thursday 2 September 2021

Utopia in Trouble

Utopia in Trouble (2021)

"Some time ago, we set ourselves a goal, an objective, an ideal: to publish an epic poem in the parameters of Rhys Hughes, not Homer. It would be a Rhysariad. And after Mombasa Madrigal (and other African Escapades), Arms Against a Sea (And Other Troubles), Crepuscularks and Phantomimes, here we have Utopia in Trouble. Farce, satire and parody are usual elements in Rhys Hughes' prose, but in Utopia in Trouble they gain an almost cinematic freshness. Not only for the sincere, almost touching tribute to the great filmmaker Jacques Tati in the short story "The Playtime of Monunculus", but for the entire framework of each of the stories in this book. For Utopia, here, appears not only as the hieratic and perpetually stable project of a perfect society, but as the irresistible strangeness that only imagination and fiction can evoke, even if in a brief and dizzying instant. Utopia in Trouble, a collection with fearsome short stories by Rhys Hughes. A perfect square in format (7.87 × 7.87 in.), 90 pages, with a exclusive, painfully handcrafted Japanese binding style, designed at Raphus Press Immanent Headquarters and printed by Sol Negro. As usual, this new chapbook edition will be very scarce: only 25 copies, plus some (very few) private copies."

Contents:

The Burning Nose * The Forever Man * The Playtime of Monunculus * The Overlooked Story * The Geometry of Prayer * Other Days