Bibliopaths and Phobologues

A bibliopath is an author who believes his books are being mutilated because they're so popular, or a reader who believes the author is stuffing his books full of coded messages especially for her. A phobologue is somebody who watches over the simple use of language, so we don't have to follow the rules and can use language any way we like. This book, however, is populated by a range of other characters, including the woman who went through her friends on Facebook until only one contact was left, a company that offers every kind of omelet imaginable, a government employee who follows the thread of a customer's red jersey dress until he reaches the customer's apartment, a translator who becomes so obsessed with the deceased writer she is translating she tries to copy her in absolutely everything, the "note killer" who murders using punctuation as a weapon, the librarian who goes through returned books looking for mislaid items, a woman who hears literary voices inside a plexiglass ball, the occupant of a house who is driven to leave because books have taken over, an old woman who goes to confess all the men she's been mixing with, a couple whose portrait seems to grow old the way they do... Welcome to the Universe according to Emma Pedreira, one of the most exciting contemporary authors writing in the Galician language today.

Emma Pedreira is the recipient of important Galician literary awards, such as the Xerais for novels and the Jules Verne for young people's literature, which she won with her novel Invisible Bodies, published by Small Stations Press in Jonathan Dunne's translation. Kathleen March is Professor Emerita at the University of Maine. Other authors she has translated for Small Stations Press include Anxo Angueira, Marica Campo, Álvaro Cunqueiro, Miguel Anxo Fernández, and Susana Sanches Arins.