PARABLES

Parables is a literary event that sets a new standard of excellence for twenty-first century prose literature.This book takes a new approach to short fiction and modernizes the parable form. In it the reader will discover fresh, unconventional manners of depicting characters that capture the profound depth and variety of the human psyche and experience. In the first decades of the twentieth century, Franz Kafka recreated the short story form, including parables. Later in mid-century, the Argentine genius, Jorge Luis Borges, went even further. Kafka and Borges were imitated by many, from Italo Calvino, whose internationally famous book, Invisible Cities (Le città invisibili, Torino, 1972), is merely an elongated version of what Kafka and Borges had already accomplished, to Margaret Atwood, who in stories such as "Freeforall" (Toronto, 1986) and "Lusus Naturae" (in Stone Mattress: Nine Tales, 2014) produces sheer, unapologetic imitations of Kafka through George Orwell. Excerpts from the volume: No blood stains, not even tears were discovered, though neither was too distant a possibility. The professional abductors had taken him to some distant and featureless mountainous region of the lawless country. The Abductee, or The Imaginary Invalid "And one day the Merlin may yet see that what cannot be given away can still be discovered and attained." The Open Secret When I awoke a few hours before dawn, a hint of moisture on my forehead, for some strange reason the scent of sweet violets was still with me. Of Oriental Mysteries and Entanglements Archipelagoes of life and continents of joy. Sigma Archeology