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Tea with the Queen
by Evald Flisar
$21.95 paperback
2014, 452 pages, 6 x 9
ISBN-13: 978-0692356838
ISBN-10: 0692356835
Order through CreateSpace.
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In 1969 a young Slovenian painter Vili Vaupotic arrives in London with the great hope that within two years his masterpieces will be exhibited in the Tate gallery, while he himself will be invited to the annual Queen's tea party for successful immigrants. (Sir William Wowpotitch?) Tea with the Queen is a bitter-sweet tale of lost illusions, rich with unexpected reversals and (self)reflections. The external narrative is merely a means whereby the author creates in front of the reader's eyes "a stream of those aspects of reality that most people, because of their trivia-laden minds, no longer register." The novel's admirable flow is interspersed with "a cacophony of aggressive sounds' forcing their way into the minds of the characters from outside, revealing that 'the outside reality is kinder than the reality of our souls." Tea with the Queen is thus a luxurious, vibrant story about eternal human fallibility, about our blindspots and hopes, mistakes and sorrows; in other words, as universal as a story can be. Thanks to the author's exceptional feeling for nuances, dialog and dramatic fabulation even such a long novel is a pleasure to read. In terms of narrative mastery, Tea with the Queen surpasses even the authorl's legendary Sorcerer's Apprentice, in the past 30 years the most widely read novel by any Slovenian writer.
Evald Flisar (1945, Slovenia). Novelist, playwright, essayist, editor, globe-trotter (travelled in more than 90 countries), underground train driver in Sydney, editor of (among other publications) an encyclopaedia of science and invention in London, author of short stories and radio plays for the BBC, president of the Slovene Writers' Association (1995 - 2002), since 1998 editor of the oldest Slovenian literary journal Sodobnost (Contemporary Review). Author of eleven novels (six - including If I Only Had Time - short-listed for kresnik, the Slovenian "Booker"), two collections of short stories, three travelogues, two books for children, and fifteen stage plays. Winner of the Preseren Foundation Prize, the highest state award for prose and drama, the prestigious Zupancic Award for lifetime achievement, three awards for Best Play of the Year, etc. Various works translated into 33 languages, among them Bengali, Malay, Nepalese, Indonesian, Turkish, Greek, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Czech, Albanian, Lithuanian, Icelandic, Russian, English, German, Italian, Spanish, etc. His stage plays are regularly performed all over the world, most recently in Austria, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Belarus. Attended more than 50 literary readings and festivals on all continents. Lived abroad for 20 years (three years in Australia, 17 years in London). Since 1990, resident in Ljubljana, Slovenia. His other works published by Texture Press are Tales of Wandering, My Father's Dreams, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Collected Plays, Vol. 1 and Collected Plays, Vol. 2.
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