Atomik Aztex - Softcover

Foster, Sesshu

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0872864405 ISBN 13: 9780872864405

Publisher: City Lights Publishers, 2005

Synopsis

In the alternate universe of this glitteringly surreal first novel, the Aztecs rule, having conquered the European invaders. Zenzontli, Keeper of the House of Darkness, is visited by visions of a parallel world run by the Europeans, where consumerism reigns supreme. Aztecs armed with automatic weapons, totemic powers and blood sacrifice conquer and colonize 1940s Europe, as ghosts of the world wars emerge to haunt contemporary Los Angeles.

Atomik Aztex is a hilarious read. A potent concoction, with influences from graphic novels, along with Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo, the paranoia of Philip K. Dick and William Burroughs, and an outrageous cyber-Aztlán mix reminiscent of Guillermo Gómez-Peña.

Sesshu Foster is the author of the critically acclaimed City Terrace Field Manual.

About this title

About the Author:

Sesshu Foster is the author of City Terrace Field Manual (Kaya Press, 1996), and Atomik Aztex (City Lights, 2005), Sesshu Foster teaches literature and composition in East L.A., where he grew up. His poetry has been published in numerous anthologies and journals. Invocation L.A.: Multicultural Urban Poetry, which he edited with Naomi Quinonez and Michelle Clinton, won a 1990 American Book Award.

Review:

"... a graphic, hilarious and violent chronicle of multiple realities that could emerge ... an amazing exercise of radical imagination."—Guillermo Gómez-Peña

"... this is an ambitious, energetic, and fiercely intelligent novel."—Bookforum

"A fine example of alternative fiction with a strong social theme; recommended for most collections."—Library Journal, January 2006

"Atomik Aztex is hip, bloody, occasionally baffling and often piercingly brilliant."—Cherie Parker, Minneapolis Star Tribune, December 15, 2005

"Hilarious, poignant, and at times devastating, Foster has crafted a fine ... cocktail of sublime anarchy to toss into the machine."—Rubén Martínez, author of The New Americans: Seven Families Journey to Another Country

"The prose is an electrifying, eclectic phantasmagoria of Groucho's marxism, dadada, surreal and naturalcombined with double-edged intellectual/historical hysteria."—Rick Harsh, author of the Driftless Trilogy

"This is one mad neighborhood carnival roller coaster ride through Aztlán, the underground, the QT ... Oddball, hilarious deep."—Marisela Norte, author of East L.A. Days/Fellini Nights

"A book so heedlessly imaginative it often seems ready to burst its pages like a comic-book POW."—Emily Barton, Bookforum, December 2005

"... puts his finger on a particular nexus of World War II-era racism, factory life and the landscape of Los Angeles"—The Los Angeles Times, January 2006

Atomik Aztex was chosen the Winner of The Believer Magazine Book Award 2005!!—The Believer Magazine, March 2006

About this edition

• Publisher: City Lights Publishers
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0872864405
• ISBN 13: 9780872864405
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224