#falsipedies

I feel like my first book, Children of Dust, was chiseled entirely out of the stalagmites and stalactites of scar tissue and suffering. Conceiving it was hard, writing it was hard, and promoting it was hard. The joy in it was the subversive sort. A laughter that you don't utter too loud because you sense that it might disorient others. My second book, Falsipedies & Fibsiennes, is so different. It is light, airy, innocent. It invites with a smile, without latching onto your back. One advance reader called it "mystic and romantic." Compare that to the "darkly comic" or "brutal" of Children of Dust. It is so hard to find in Falsipedies the author of Children of Dust. Yet I lie fermented in both. Red wine, white wine. Now I seek sommeliers that excel in tasting the varieties of spirit. Share this with others that like to sip.

Sincerely,

Ali Eteraz

Published in September, 2014, via Guernica Editions. Now available online and at bookstores.

Ranging from the Persian Gulf to the American South, from ancient Greece to pre-Islamic Arabia, Ali Eteraz's stories observe an eccentric cast of characters longing for freedom. Illicit lovers playing with Koranic numerology; an enslaved man turned into a beast; a young woman rejecting her father's faith; theologically inclined brothers caught in a dragnet; a resentful poet's cynical humanitarianism. Sensual and surrealist, the stories in Falsipedies and Fibsiennes unsettle and surprise, but with tenderness.

The title of the collection is inspired by the "Gymnopedies and Gnossiennes" of the early 20th century Dadaist composer Erik Satie. These were made-up words Satie used to refer to a new type of music.

Table of Contents

The Woman in the Scorpion Abaya

A Lawyer in Islamistan

A Beautiful Woman

Honey

The Invasion of Mecca

The Monster

The Art of Becoming Snow

The Art of Becoming a Jinn

Volkodlak

The Conversion of Hajj Abdul Rahim al-Biloxi

The Hunter of Virgins

Tyranny

Preorder English language versions: