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Chasing Homer (Hardcover)

Chasing Homer Cover Image
By László Krasznahorkai, John Batki (Translated by), Max Neumann (By (artist)), Szilveszter Miklós (Performed by)
$19.95
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Description


A classic escape nightmare, Chasing Homer is sped on not only by Krasznahorkai’s signature velocity, but also by a unique musical score and intense illustrations


In this thrilling chase narrative, a hunted being escapes certain death at breakneck speed—careening through Europe, heading blindly South. Faster and faster, escaping the assassins, our protagonist flies forward, blending into crowds, adjusting to terrains, hopping on and off ferries, always desperately trying to stay a step ahead of certain death: the past did not exist, only what was current existed—a prisoner of the instant, rushing into this instant, an instant that had no continuation …

      Krasznahorkai—celebrated for the exhilarating energy of his prose—outdoes himself in Chasing Homer. And this unique collaboration boasts beautiful full-color paintings by Max Neumann and—reaching out of the book proper—the wildly percussive music of Szilveszter Miklós scored for each chapter (to be accessed by the reader via QR codes).

About the Author


The winner of the 2019 National Book Award for Translated Literature and the 2015 Man Booker International Prize for lifetime achievement, László Krasznahorkai was born in Gyula, Hungary.



John Batki is a kilimologist, writer, translator, and visual artist. He was born in Hungary and has lived in the United States since age fourteen.

Max Neumann is a leading German painter who turns the human figure into an abstract symbol, reducing his compositions to their pure essence. He has had more than 150 solo exhibitions around the world and lives in Berlin.

Szilveszter Miklós, a Hungarian jazz drummer and improviser, graduated from the Franz Liszt Academy and is one of the pioneering figures in Budapest’s free music scene.

Praise For…


Apocalyptic, visionary, and mad, it flies off the page and stays lodged intractably wherever it lands.
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

László Krasznahorkai is the undisputed laureate of our deranged, vulnerable epoch
— Eileen Battersby - The Irish Times

László Krasznahorkai is a visionary writer of extraordinary intensity and vocal range who captures the texture of present-day existence in scenes that are terrifying, strange, appallingly comic, and often shatteringly beautiful.
— Marina Warner - Announcing the Man Booker International Prize

Krasznahorkai constantly pushes beyond the expected, escalating everything to the brink of deliriousness.
— Idra Novey - The New York Times Book Review

A writer of immense talent, capable of creating stories that are both unforgettably visceral and beautiful on the page.
— Claire Kohda Hazelton - The Guardian

There is no rest, no comfort in thoughts of the good, for this man in flight from unknown others who may be secret police agents, assassins, or mere hunters. Particularly beguiling are the percussive sonic vignettes that accompany the book chapter by chapter, available online via QR codes at the head of each.... Allusive and acerbic: a brilliant work that proves the adage that even paranoiacs have enemies.
— Kirkus (starred review)

The Hungarian iconoclast’s vision of spiritual terror is now available in surround sound.
— Sam Sacks - Wall Street Journal

Once again, Krasznahorkai demonstrates that his ability to convey the instability of existence and evoke the menace inherent in everyday life is without equal.
— Declan O'Driscoll - The Irish Times

When the Hungarian novelist László Krasznahorkai releases a new short work, you can immediately infer a few things: it will be mad (ravingly so) and preoccupied with its own madness; it will consist of fewer sentences than pages; it’s likely to include works of art; and it will be far, far denser than its length seems to allow. Krasznahorkai’s new book, Chasing Homer, is a cacophonous, confounding work.

— Will Fenstermaker - Frieze

László Krasznahorkai is gifted with seductive powers
— Elaine Margolin - World Literature Today

Joyce, Beckett and Kafka provide the obvious points of reference. But there’s also an element of experimental theater in Neumann’s eerily evocative paintings, Szilveszter’s heart-pounding, and Krasznahorkai’s disturbing illogic... If any of this sounds excessively avant-garde, it should be added that Chasing Homer is as immediate, and almost as engrossing, as binge-watching.

— Mary Maxwell - On the Seawall

László Krasznahorkai’s latest book cages a delirious mind in a tightly wrapped piece of fiction.
— Rain Taxi

What Krasznahorkai’s maladjusted, fearful, logorrheic heroes offer is an alternative to contemporary disillusionment: not solipsistic defensiveness or brutal realpolitik, but the hope that somewhere out there, across an unbreachable border, lies something better.
— Alexander Wells - New Left Review

Product Details
ISBN: 9780811227971
ISBN-10: 0811227979
Publisher: New Directions
Publication Date: November 2nd, 2021
Pages: 96
Language: English