| Vendor | |
|---|---|
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Liepman Literary Agency
Marc Koralnik |
| Original language | |
| English | |
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THE ELEPHANT ON KARLUV BRIDGE
Thomas Trofimuk's novel masterfully convinces us to accept all the wonders contained in it.
Sál, a five-ton elephant, escapes at midnight from the Prague Zoo. As she lumbers through the beautiful city, she alters the lives of everyone she encounters, carrying the narrative from one point of view to another.
Each character is at a crossroads, desperately seeking wisdom to wrestle with profound questions how to live, who and how to love, and how to heal. Vasha, a writer and night watchman at the zoo, and his wife Marta confront the question of whether to have a child; árka, Marta's patient and a dancer at the end of her career, is visited by a charming and abrasive manifestation of Anna Pavlova; Joseph, a clown and bouffon, performs on the Karluv Bridge and is about to be struck down by a new love.
Through it all, Sál, haunted by memories of her long-ago capture in Africa, steals the show, wandering the streets in search of water and food, struggling to escape her bewildering predicament. Though she, like the humans she encounters, is free now to make her own choices, she is also displaced and lost. Trofimuk's novel masterfully convinces us to accept all the wonders contained in it: that a bridge can tell a story, art is integral to our survival, an elephant can scatter sudden flashes of insight in her wake, and there is no separation between the grief of elephants and the grief of humans.
THOMAS TROFIMUK has written four other novels, including Waiting for Columbus, which was published in eight territories, won the City of Edmonton Book Prize, and was nominated for the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Trofimuk lives in Edmonton, Alberta.
Each character is at a crossroads, desperately seeking wisdom to wrestle with profound questions how to live, who and how to love, and how to heal. Vasha, a writer and night watchman at the zoo, and his wife Marta confront the question of whether to have a child; árka, Marta's patient and a dancer at the end of her career, is visited by a charming and abrasive manifestation of Anna Pavlova; Joseph, a clown and bouffon, performs on the Karluv Bridge and is about to be struck down by a new love.
Through it all, Sál, haunted by memories of her long-ago capture in Africa, steals the show, wandering the streets in search of water and food, struggling to escape her bewildering predicament. Though she, like the humans she encounters, is free now to make her own choices, she is also displaced and lost. Trofimuk's novel masterfully convinces us to accept all the wonders contained in it: that a bridge can tell a story, art is integral to our survival, an elephant can scatter sudden flashes of insight in her wake, and there is no separation between the grief of elephants and the grief of humans.
THOMAS TROFIMUK has written four other novels, including Waiting for Columbus, which was published in eight territories, won the City of Edmonton Book Prize, and was nominated for the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Trofimuk lives in Edmonton, Alberta.
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Book
Published 2022-08-15 by THISTLEDOWN PRESS |