If contemporary
world history isn’t surreal enough for you, dive into
the willful wickedness of Andrej Sapkowski’s
latest genre-bending novel, Narrenturm (it roughly
translates from the German as Asylum). Freely
warping the historical and the fantastic, this Polish
bestseller follows the relatives of a Silesian duke
as they surprise an amorous knight — Reinmar of Bielawa,
known as Reynevan — in flagrante with the duke’s
Burgundian wife. When the knight bolts out the door,
the chase is on. Set in 1425 in the Czech Crown lands
(just after the world failed to implode, despite fire-and-brimstone
predictions to the contrary), the book’s historical
details are accurate down to the finest codpiece, though
the plot is entirely fictional. Sapkowski has written
numerous collections of short stories, as well as a
masterful five-volume sequence about a warlock named
Geralt (motifs of which were the basis for the film
Warlock, which premiered in Poland in 2001).
The author got his break when he won a writing contest
in 1985, and his charmingly eccentric stories have been
compared with rave-worthy Polish sci-fi author Stanislaw
Lem (both authors are hits among young readers).
Word on the street is that Sapkowski has plenty more
tricks up his sleeve. He’s been translated into Czech,
Russian, Lithuanian, and German; contact Patricia
Pasqualini of Agence de L’Est (France) for
the rest of the world.
In a darker
quasi-fantastical tale, it took a lot more than duct
tape to protect a group of women — the wives, sisters,
daughters, and nieces of General Bento Congalves,
leader of a revolutionary group in Brazil’s Farropilha
War — who endured 10 long years cloistered at a secluded
house in southern Brazil between 1835 and 1845. Letícia
Wierzchowski’s novel The House of the Seven Women
is the story of that cruel abode and the war’s impact
on each of its inhabitants. The names and destinies
of some of the women are true-to-life, and are intertwined
with bloody battle scenes from a clash that profoundly
shaped Brazilian history. Already in its fifth printing,
the book went gangbusters after the January launch of
a TV Globo miniseries, adapted from the book
by Walter Negrão and Maria Adelaide Amaral
and directed by Jayme Monjardim. Queries have
come in from Portugal, Spain, and Germany, and others
are hot on the trail. Contact Elena Errazuriz
of the Anne Marie Vallat Literary Agency (Spain)
for France, Portugal, and Spanish rights, and Ray-Güde
Mertin for all other territories.
Meanwhile,
two books with very different timbres hit the Italian
list at full force this month. From the “avenger of
the single woman” who brought us the bestseller Alone
Like a Celery Stalk (it sold about 1 million copies;
see PT,
Aug. ’01), comes a diary of a modern Princess
and the Pea, who has no delusions about her prince.
Known for insights into the single gal’s life, comic
actress Luciana Littizzetto turns from her mainstay
genre (“the surreal outpourings of a feather-brained
single girl”) to a diary-like narrative of the relationship
between an ordinary girl and guy written with a super-sardonic
wit. Determined to prove that no woman should cry at
the thought of being single (or the manifold horrors
of finding a “better half”), Littizzetto, a former
teacher of music, has triumphed as a cult figure of
Italian humor. All rights are available from Mondadori.
The other
title raising a ruckus in Italy is Giorgio Faletti’s
psychological thriller I Kill, which will soon
be taking its homicidal horrors to the silver screen
via producer Aurelio De Laurentiis (Filmauro)
— who just shelled out 600,000 euros for the rights
to an international co-production, which will include
the US and some European countries (it’s said to be
one of the biggest deals ever in Italy for an adaptation).
The book is described as a “thriller marked by a trace
of sadness,” packed with desperations and reminiscent
of Ken Follett. Faletti, a former cabaret
artist and song lyricist making his literary debut,
has elsewhere been dubbed a “more cultured Tom Clancy.”
Several US publishing houses are already reading the
novel, which features a Radio Monte Carlo DJ who receives
delirious telephone calls from a serial killer. The
crimes are shaped by musical clues, creating a “superb
soundtrack for the story.” Contact Angela Lombardo
at Baldini & Castoldi.
Regarding
our newly added Russian bestseller list — for which
PT gratefully acknowledges Yulia Borodyanskaya
and Peter Gavrilov of Knizhnoye Obozreniye
(Russia’s equivalent to PW) — you’ll notice three
titles by noteworthy crime author Daria Dontsova,
just one more sign of the burgeoning popularity of Russian-authored
crime tomes. With the opening of the nation’s market
in the ’90s, Western authors were readily devoured,
but since then, homegrown authors have mastered the
genre themselves — and demand hasn’t peaked yet. Crowned
Russia’s “Writer of the Year” in 2001 and 2002, Dontsova
has churned out about 40 titles (in what Gavrilov calls
her “clinical graphomania”), most of them featuring
a strong female protagonist. With hardcovers averaging
$4 at bookstores (paperbacks rarely breach the $2 mark),
scooping up a bundle of page-turners at a time is not
uncommon — hence popular authors often have more than
one bestselling title at once. Since 1995, Russian house
Eksmo has published more than 27 million copies
of her novels, which have been so widely disseminated
that the act of reading them has been likened to “self-brain-washing.”
(As Russia promotes its home-grown talent, PT
has learned that it pays to be careful: at least one
major US publisher’s attempt at a mega multi-title deal
fell through when their Russian counterparts couldn’t
make the advance payment.) Meanwhile, talk of crime
and literature in Russia is not complete without mention
of the pending lawsuit against young Russian author
Dmitry Yemets, whose Tanya Grotter and the
Magical Double Bass (the story of a bespectacled
orphan who rides a magical flying double bass) is not
the only Harry Potter parody — he’s battling
for that distinction with Andrey Zhvalevsky’s
Porry Gatter and the Stone Philosopher. That’s
no surprise, considering that the “real” Harry Potter
series has sold about 1.2 million copies in Russia.
Fans waiting for the next Potter book will find the
Grotter series a more affordable alternative, the first
having sold 100,000 copies at about $2.50, compared
to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which
goes for a whopping $5.85. Unfazed by legal threats,
Eksmo said it plans to publish two more Grotter books
this year.
