{"product_id":"journeys-and-flowers","title":"Journeys and Flowers","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cspan\u003eMercè Rodoreda\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA mesmerising and enigmatic collection of short stories, haunted by the horrors of war, and divided into two parts: journeys and flowers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA lone traveller with no endpoint in sight finds himself journeying through villages where the dead walk at solstice, silkworm-like women live in cocoons and a thousand men in gleaming armour play at being soldiers. Reality blurs, shimmers and darkens; unease grows.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStories of invented flowers follow and allow nature to bloom, vivid and intoxicating, to the fore. Absurd, lush and dreamlike, they capture different truths of humanity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn this collection, inventive force and lyrical power come together in a poetic voice of indelible magnetism to create a beguiling, uncanny world – and confirm Mercè Rodoreda as one of the greatest Catalan writers of the twentieth century.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘These vignettes are planted thick with charm and eccentricity; but there is also a persistent seam of melancholy, and violence frequent erupts.’ \u003cem\u003eTLS\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Rodoreda has bedazzled me by the sensuality with which she reveals things within the atmosphere of her novels.’ Gabriel García Márquez \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Rodoreda’s stories are a collection of snowglobes, frozen and beautiful.’ \u003cem\u003eThe Skinny\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Rodoreda’s prose . . . is bold and beautiful.’ Jesmyn Ward\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Rodoreda’s writing pays such fierce and tender attention to the experience of being alive, and the tempest that ordinary life can be.’ Helen Oyeyemi\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘The stories or vignettes or prose-poems that make up Mercè Rodoreda’s \u003cem\u003eJourneys and Flowers \u003c\/em\u003eeach operate with their own peculiar but perfect logic which is exactly the logic of dreams . . . not just the logic of dreams but their crisp and bleached reality.’ Thom Eagle\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Spare of words, these gorgeous, hypnotic vignettes contain whole worlds of sorrow and joy.’ \u003cem\u003eDaily Mail\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Mercè Rodoreda’s artistry is of the highest order.’ Diana Athill\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘The un-self-conscious beauty and the phantasmagoric pain in her work add up to a kind of sharp, transportive pleasure.’ Jia Tolentino\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘A lightning strike of a book that leaves behind a drift of violet smoke and a scent of sulphur and mimosa.’ David Hayden\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘It is a total mystery to me why [Rodoreda] isn’t widely worshipped . . . She’s on my list of authors whose works I intend to have read all of before I die. Tremendous, tremendous writer.’ John Darnielle\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e‘Rodoreda plumbs a sadness that reaches beyond historic circumstances . . . an almost voluptuous vulnerability.’ Natasha Wimmer\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50778141589838,"sku":"","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0837\/0680\/6606\/files\/o9blunwb.png?v=1735384206","url":"https:\/\/eastbristolbooks.pro\/products\/journeys-and-flowers","provider":"My Store","version":"1.0","type":"link"}