Visa for Avalon: A Novel (Paris Press) - Softcover

Bryher

Softcover

ISBN 10: 193046407X ISBN 13: 9781930464070

Publisher: Paris Press, 2004

Synopsis

In this chilling dystopian novel, four men and women attempt an escape to legendary Avalon after the "Movement" threatens the liberty and comforts they have taken for granted. Visa for Avalon takes place in an unnamed country and an unnamed time. In it, Bryher uses her knowledge of history and psychology to examine political crisis in a familiar setting. First published in 1965, it resonates profoundly today. The style is understated and tense as Bryher suggests that closing our eyes to growing restrictions and loss of liberties does not protect us. She offers a provocative commentary about the paradise of King Arthur's Avalon as well. This is a wake-up book that encourages readers of all ages and backgrounds to defend democracy.

About this title

About the Author:

Bryher (1894-1983) wrote many critically acclaimed novels and memoirs during her lifetime. She was deeply involved in film, politics, and psychology. She funded Contact Editions, and edited Life and Letters To-day and the first English film journal, Close Up. She was the longtime companion of the poet H.D., and a benefactor of numerous writers, artists, psychoanalysts, and culture icons, including Marianne Moore, Sigmund Freud, Walter Benjamin, and Sylvia Beach of Shakespeare and Company.

From Booklist:

Robinson has retired to the peaceful fishing village of Trelawney, where he lodges with Lilian, a widow much attached to her snug cottage. But there have been vague intimations of the growing strength of a tyrannical political force known as the Movement, and when the government abruptly requisitions her home, Lilian, along with many others, suddenly awakens to the fact that she has no place in this cruel new world. She and Robinson hastily seek permission to immigrate to the distant land of Avalon, but it may be too late. So begins this tautly constructed, chillingly dramatic, and profoundly resonant novel of warning. When it was first published in 1965, Britian-born and Switzerland-based Bryher (1894-1983) was a popular historical novelist, but her work has long been out of print, and her fascinating life--she was also a pioneering publisher and philanthropist who helped dozens of Jewish and German intellectuals escape Nazi persecution--has nearly been forgotten. This is an inspired and timely resurrection of an incisive and provocative fable of the high cost of apathy and the insidiousness of fascism, an intriguing progenitor to Philip Roth's The Plot against America [BKL Ag 04], and readers will find the accompanying profile of Bryher equally compelling. Donna Seaman
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About this edition

• Publisher: Paris Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 193046407X
• ISBN 13: 9781930464070
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 157