Scarecrow & Other Anomalies (12 page)

KARL KVITKO
was born in an area of the Blue Ridge Mountains to a woman of Ukrainian or Irish descent. His Germanic father, a zookeeper, disappeared on an extended expedition in very wet terrain. Kvitko, raised in an orphanage, first took an interest in snakes, then languages and literatures. Eventually he studied Russian and specialized in espionage. Most of his works appear in another language under an official cryptonym. In 1985, convinced that the big publishers hated real literature, written, as Yevgeny Zamyatin observed, “not by efficient and trustworthy clerks, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels, skeptics,” he founded Xenos Books, taking for its name the Greek word that means both “stranger” and “guest.” Everyone involved with the press matches at least one of Zamyatin’s specifications.

OTHER KINDLE EDITIONS FROM XENOS BOOKS

Antonio Di Benedetto,
Animal World
, translated from Spanish by H. E. Francis. A collection of short stories (original title:
Mundo animal
) with hallucinatory animal transformations, by the acclaimed Argentine master. ISBN 1-879378-27-2. $3.99.

Giancarlo Pastore,
Jellyfish
, translated from Italian by Jamie Richards. An experimental novel that takes the reader to the farthest reaches of alienation and despair. Its hero has a constant fantasy of being inside a jellyfish: “my feet detach from the ground and i float, i extend my tentacles. i expand, soft, languid, transparent. above, the sunlight recedes.
Jellyfish
(original title:
Meduse
) was hailed as a classic by major critics in Italy upon its appearance in 2003. ISBN 1-879378-57-4. $4.99.