The Cafe Irreal is 'a quarterly webzine that presents a kind
of fantastic fiction infrequently published in English. This fiction, which we
would describe as irreal, resembles the work of writers such as Franz Kafka, Kobo
Abe, Clarice Lispector and Jorge Luis Borges.’ It is edited by G.S. Evans and
Alice Whittenburg.
Issue 75, August 2020, includes my text ‘So, About Hats’, a revised version of a piece published in infra noir (Zagava, 2014).
‘The reader of a successfully written irreal work will be confronted with a piece of literature that cannot simply be translated as a fantasy or a satire, or as a symbolist work of one sort or the other. Thus cut off from their familiar mooring in the possible, or the conventionally (and ultimately explainable) impossible, they will be left alone, so to speak, with the absurd. Thus a tension is created in the work, one that the physics of the work will not allow to be resolved (as, indeed, the tensions and anxieties it is reflecting are not resolvable).’ G.S. Evans.
Also available from the website is The Irreal Reader, an anthology of fiction and essays about this form.
(Mark Valentine)
A fantastic story, Mark... I read it online, apologies, I still need to get to Infra Noir, so many books, and daily distractions.
ReplyDeleteI agree. That was terrifying.
ReplyDelete