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160 pages, Hardcover
First published April 20, 2013
“Objects, matter itself, were softly disintegrating. All identity became ambiguous, semi-opaque.”
This city's hidden name is "secret". People end up losing one another before they know it. Everything disappears as quickly as it's put up. The same is true of memories. It can even happen that, if you take ten steps out of your door then turn and look back, the house you just left isn't there any more. And then you'll never find it again. It can happen with people, too. This city's hidden name is "secret".
"Hold on to my arm. This city's hidden name is 'secret.' People end up losing one another before they know it. Everything disappears as quickly as it's put up. The same is true of memories. It can even happen that, if you take ten steps out of your door and then turn and look back, the house you just left isn't there any more. And then you'll never find it again. It can happen with people, too."
"With the lights off, the interior of the auditorium seemed as though submerged in murky water. Objects, matter itself, were softly disintegrating. All identity became ambiguous, semi-opaque. Not only light and form, but sound, too."
Today's. Temperature. Forty. Degrees. Celsius. No wind. No cloud. Danger. Of burning. Forty. Degrees. Absence. Of wind. Absence. Of cloud. Daytime. City. Mirage. Scheduled. To appear. Absence. Of wind. Absence. Of cloud. Absence. Of colour. In the sky.
“Air hotter than the heat of midsummer solidified into transparent bullets, penetrating one heart after the other, travelling between them with excruciating slowness. At every moment, the crystallisation of invisible wax ruptured skin and perforated flesh. Smouldering hunks of flesh. Mucous membranes ragged with burns. Breathing was a train headed for disaster. Every time the city dwellers fell asleep their bodies became cruelly soaked in sweat, like tinder doused with lighter fluid. They burned without flames through the long hours of the night.”
“People lose one another before they know it. Everything disappears as quickly as it’s put up. The same is true of memories. It can happen that you take ten steps out of your door then turn and look back, and the house you just left isn’t there any more. And then you’ll never find it again. It can happen with people, too.”
“Translation is always happening, though we don’t always notice it. What language do Wolfi and Ayami speak? The ‘original’ is already a translation. And the idea of translation pervades the whole.” – Translator’s Notes
“When is one book written by more than one person? When are two books both the same and different? Is translation a mind-bending paradox, a run-of-the-mill banality, or a joke that misses the mark? Perhaps all three – simultaneously.” – Translator’s Notes
“Just then, when the shop lights went off, it occurred to me that I’m no more than an imaginary woman in your dream.’
‘If that’s the case, I don’t want to wake up.’
‘If the one who’s dreaming me is not an unknowable god but you yourself. If the dream is the product of your imagination.’
‘Let’s drink to the fact that we’re the products of each other’s imagination.”