Showing results by author "Camilla Grudova" in All Categories

When you believe a better life waits for you beyond death, the perfect place to die is a difficult thing to find. Content warning: This story contains self-harm and disordered eating.

In Grudova's unforgettably surreal style, these stories expose the absurdities behind contemporary ideas of work, Britishness and art-making, to conjure a singular, startling strangeness that proves the deft skill of a writer at the top of her game.

When Holly applies for a job at the Paradise—one of the city's oldest cinemas, squashed into the ground floor of a block of flats—she thinks it will be like any other shift work. She cleans toilets, sweeps popcorn, avoids the belligerent old owner, Iris, and is ignored by her aloof but tight-knit colleagues who seem as much a part of the building as its fraying carpets and endless dirt. Dreadful, lonely weeks pass while she longs for their approval, a silent voyeur.

Tredici racconti, tredici visioni di società corrose, fondate sull’oppressione e la violenza, popolate da donne distrutte e uomini deboli, da creature d’incubo e orrori quotidiani: Camilla Grudova crea mondi paralleli surreali e grotteschi, in cui il terrore e la mostruosità convivono con una feroce ironia. Leggendo questi racconti, il lettore si trova incollato alla pagina, catturato da una suspence che fa presagire l’orrore e lo nasconde negli elementi inquietanti che ricompaiono periodicamentecreando un filo rosso attraverso la raccolta: bambole, macchine da cucire, lattine, specchi.