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October 24th @ 7 p.m. - Author Appearance by George Saunders
Reading and signing of his latest book, The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil.
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posted to the web on 10/5/2005 at 4:08 PM.
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Widely-acclaimed, award-winning writer George Saunders will read his first stand-alone novella, The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil. This much-anticipated new work is an outrageous and penetrating political satire that sheds light on the timeless issues of power and impotence—an Animal Farm for our times.
George Saunders offers his most boldly imaginative fiction yet, complemented by original artwork by Ben Gibson. The story opens in the strange country of Inner Horner, so small it can accommodate only one of the not-exactly-human residents at a time; citizens must wait their turns in the surrounding country of Outer Horner. But when Outer Horner falls under the spell of the tyrannical Phil, it sets off a powerful chain of mass hysteria and injustice.
George Saunders has been hailed by Thomas Pynchon as "an astoundingly tuned voice—graceful, dark, authentic—telling just the kind of stories we need to get through these times" and by Michiko Kakutani as "like the illegitimate offspring of Nathanael West and Kurt Vonnegut…Mr. Saunders’s satiric vision of America is dark and demented; it is also ferocious and very funny" (New York Times). Saunders has earned overwhelming accolades and a devoted cult following from coast to coast, and as a regular contributor to The New Yorker, Harper's, and Slate, Saunders has established himself as a hilarious but wise political voice. And, six years in the writing, THE BRIEF AND FRIGHTENING REIGN OF PHIL showcases his finely-honed, seriously funny literary and political vision, in all its absurdist glory.
Playing the seeming innocence of a fable off of the dark nightmares and fantasies of tyrants and their victims, Saunders sticks a sharp jab into the storytelling of inhuman tragedy. Brilliantly conceived and beautifully packaged, and fueled by Saunders’s signature, unrivaled wit, outlandish imagination, and incisive political sensibility, THE BRIEF AND FRIGHTENING REIGN OF PHIL is a deeply strange yet strangely familiar fable of justice and injustice. He treats the politics of power and influence with equal measures of wry criticism, keen humor, and genuine hopefulness—in a way that only Saunders can.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
George Saunders is the author of the New York Times Notable Books CivilWarLand in Bad Decline—currently under development with Ben Stiller’s Red Hour Films and to be filmed in 2006—and Pastoralia. He is the three-time recipient of the National Magazine Award and a four-time recipient of the O. Henry Award. Nominated for the PEN/Hemingway Award for First Fiction, Saunders is now the director of the Creative Writing Program at Syracuse University.
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