Republic of Consciousness Class of 2021
By Republic of Consciousness
Republic of Consciousness Class of 2021
By Republic of Consciousness
The 2021 Republic of Consciousness longlist was announced on Thursday 4th February 2021.
The list features ten books from ten small presses across the U.K. and Ireland. The books range from a Caribbean Island in 1976 to a city built on the corpse of God; they feature Glenn Gould, Ludwig van Beethoven and Hildegard von Bingen; there are books that make the fictional seem as real as you and I, and books which spin fact into fiction. There are short books and long books, and those written in English next to those translated into English. We love them all. We hope you’ll find something you love here too.
All presses receive £1,000 award. Congratulations to the longlisted publishers and authors.
The Republic of Consciousness shortlist will be announced late March 2021, and the winner will be announced mid-May.
Mordew
Alex Pheby
£16.99 £16.14LONGLISTED Mordew reveals a sprawling, mordant vision of a world built on the corpse of God. The novel's world-building is intricate and superbly rendered – not for nothing has its ambition and rich flair drawn comparison with the work of Mervyn Peake. Pheby's grim and provocative epic is packed with imagery that startles, sticks, and sinks its teeth into you.
A Ghost In The Throat
Doireann Ni Ghriofa
£12.99 £12.34LONGLISTED The twin tale of a young 21st century mother and an 18th century Irish noblewoman, Eibhlínn Dubh Ní Chonnaill, who mourned the murder of her husband by drinking his blood and composing the Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire, one of the greatest poems in the Irish language, A Ghost in the Throat moves between past and present with hallucinogenic intensity as the narrator uncovers the details of the dead poet’s life, each revelation deepening her own sense of herself as a writer and a woman.
A Musical Offering
Luis Sagasti
£8.99 £8.54LONGLISTED This rich and complex book is the second by the Argentinian writer Luis Sagasti to have been published in translation by Charco Press. Like the first, Fireflies, it is unclassifiable in the best possible way, braiding together memoir, history, science, fable, musical criticism, and anthropology in a way that summons the ghosts of both Sebald and Borges but with a poise and originality that is all Sagasti’s own.
Alindarka's Children: Things Will Be Bad
Alhierd Bacharevic
£11.99LONGLISTED This work of sublime storytelling follows two children, Alicia and Avi, as they attempt to escape an internment camp. A remarkable, boundless tale is reflected in a captivating translation from the Russian into English Received Pronunciation and Belarusian into Scots by Petra Reid and Jim Dingley. An unique, powerfully original work that demands to be read to be believed.
Unknown Language
Huw Lemmey and Hildegard of Bingen
£14.99 £14.24LONGLISTED Unknown Language is a highly textured and intense work of collaboration and vitality. While in part a meditation upon the work of twelfth-century mystic Hildegaard von Bingen, it is also a bold retreatment of her visions through poetic fragment, narrative and hybrid writing. It is difficult to describe, and quite right too – a revelation on revelation.
Mr. Beethoven
Paul Griffiths
£12.99 £12.34LONGLISTED A bold conceit written with energy and intellect, Mr. Beethoven considers an icon’s life, and the ways in which judgement, performance and genius might be played out if fate – or some other engine – had different designs. Griffiths' novel troubles the notions of historical fact and historical fictions, and is a book about faith as much as power, and about silence as much as music.
The Appointment
Katharina Volckmer
£9.99 £9.49LONGLISTED Subtitled ‘The Story of a Cock’, this is a bravura monologue delivered by a young German woman undergoing an intimate examination in the office of Dr Seligman in London. A savagely funny and audacious novel (think Thomas Bernhard re-written by Patricia Lockwood) in which the kamikaze honesty and the humour eventually build towards something profound and moving.
LOTE
Shola von Reinhold
£8.99 £8.54LONGLISTED Shola von Reinhold’s rapturous queer attempt to reaffirm pleasure as the heart of the novel is rich with intrigue and suspense, and possessed of a superbly arch narrative voice. It is also an indictment and a powerful decolonial response to historical and contemporary attempts to curate art and art history within the calcified mould of European conservatism.
Men And Apparitions
Lynne Tillman
£12.99 £12.34LONGLISTED A wry, searching commentary on our contemporary world scattered across a 38-year-old’s exposition of his own masculinity. Through a series of short essay-like episodes, Tillman turns Zeke’s philosophical musings into genuinely fascinating and funny extended studies on feminism, family history, American pop culture, personal betrayal and heartbreak.