: Gabriel Josipovici
: Partita and A Winter in Zürau
: Carcanet Fiction
: 9781800174320
: 1
: CHF 12.90
:
: Erzählende Literatur
: English
: 288
: Wasserzeichen
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
Partita Fiction and non-fiction are two sides of the same coin. Or are they? Michael Penderecki is in flight. Someone has threatened to kill him. But who is the woman dead in the bathtub? And why does the voice of Yves Montand singing 'Les Feuilles Mortes' surge from the horn of an antiquated phonograph in an otherwise silent villa in Sils Maria? This is the most enigmatic - and melodramatic - of Gabriel Josipovici's novels to date. It is as though one of Magritte's paintings had come to life to the rhythms of a Bach Partita. A Winter in Zürau Fiction and non-fiction are two sides of the same coin. Or are they? Franz Kafka is in flight. After spitting blood and being diagnosed with tuberculosis in the summer of 1917, his thirty-fourth year, he escapes from Prague to join his sister Ottla in her smallholding in Upper Bohemia. He leaves behind, he hopes, a dreaded office job, a dominating father, an importunate fiancée and the hothouse literary culture of his native city. Free of all this, he believes, he will at last be able to make sense of his existence and of his strange compulsion to write stories and novels which, he knows, will bring him neither fame nor financial reward. But this is not fiction. It is an exploration of eight crucial months in the life of one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, months of anguish and reflection preserved for us in his letters and journals of the time, and which resulted not just in the production of the famous Aphorisms but, as Josipovici shows in this compelling study, of some of his most resonant parables and story-fragments.

Gabriel Josipovici was born in Nice in 1940 of Russo-Italian, Romano-Levantine parents. He lived in Egypt from 1945 to 1956, when he came to Britain. He read English at a St.Edmund Hall, Oxford and from 1963 to 1998 was first a lecturer, then a Professor in the School of European Studies at the University of Sussex. He is the author of some twenty novels, ten books of criticism, a memoir of his mother, the poet Sacha Rabinovitch, and numerous stage and radio plays. His reviews have appeared in the Guardian, The Independent, The Times Literary Supplement, the New York and the London Review of Books. His most recent Carcanet publications include The Cemetery in Barnes: A Novel (2018), Forgetting (2020), 100 Days (2021), and Partita and A Winter in Zürau (2024).

1


He is dozing when the telephone rings. He puts it to his ear.

A voice says:

– Karim.

– I’m sorry?

– I am speaking to Michael? the voice says.

– Yes. Mike Penderecki here.

– This is Karim, the voice says.

– Do I know you? Mike says.

– I am the husband of Angela, the voice says.

– And who is Angela.

– The lady you are sleeping with, the voice says.

– I see, Mike says.

– I am here, the voice says. Outside your house. You will speak with me.

– Of course, Mike says.

– Then I will ring the bell.

2


– Please, Mike says, motioning to a chair on the other side of the coffee table.

The man sits and Mike sits in his turn.

– You see this? the man says, taking a small object from the pocket of his windcheater and putting it on the table between them.

– Yes, Mike says.

– It is a knife, the man says.

– Yes, Mike says.

– You know how to use it? the man says.

– Use it? Mike says.

The man presses the handle and the blade flicks out. He runs his finger along the sharp edge, then closes it gently and lays it back on the table.

– Look, Mike says. This is quite unnecessary. Angela and I have already agreed to part.

The man looks at him, smiling.

– It wasn’t going anywhere, Mike says. We both realise that. It’s over. Finished.

– You know from where I come? the man says.

– Angela told me, Mike says.

– From Homs, the man says.

– I know, Mike says.

– You do not know, the man says. I have business in Homs. It is destroy. I have house in Homs. It is destroy. I have wife and children in Homs. They are kill. You do not know.

– I’m sorry, Mike says.

– I come to England, the man says. I have cousin here. He give me work in his business. I meet Angela. We have children. You understand?

– Angela told me. I’m very sorry.

– Then you come, the man says.

– I told you, Mike says. It’s all over between Angela and me. Finished. This is an irrelevant conversation.

– Now I will explain, the man says. If I come tomorrow and you are here I will kill you.

– Hold on, Mike says. You haven’t been listening to me. It’s all over between us. This is an irrelevant c