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Ryder [Reading the Dalkey Archive]

  Ryder Djuna Barnes   Original Publication: 1928 Original Publisher: Boni & Liveright First Dalkey Archive Edition: 1990   This is a baggy novel of excess, and as someone who finds it nearly impossible to keep the thread—or develop a coherent thesis (any and all AI grading systems ...

“Diary of a Blood Donor” by Mati Unt [Excerpt]

  Diary of a Blood Donor by Mati Unt translated from Estonian by Ants Eert (Dalkey Archive Press)   AN UNEXPECTED INVITATION A crow was riding the wind that came in low over the beach. Sand blew through the window, landed on my papers, entered my mouth. A yellowish light tainted the room, even my ...

Mati Unt (1944-2005)

This piece originally appeared in CONTEXT 18, shortly after Mati Unt's passing. It was written by the translator Eric Dickens, Unt's translator, who also left us in 2017. Mati Unt was born in Estonia and lived there all his life. He spent his early years in the village of Linnamäe near the university town of Tartu. His ...

Zoo, or Letters Not about Love [Excerpt]

Forthcoming in a new "Dalkey Archive Essentials" version (with a different cover than the one depicted to the right), Zoo, or Letters Not about Love, translated from the Russian by Richard Sheldon, is one of Viktor Shklovsky's most beloved works. An epistolary novel written while Shklovsky was in exile in Berlin—and in ...

Perfect Lives [Reading the Dalkey Archive]

  Perfect Lives Robert Ashley   Original Publication: 1991 Original Publisher: Archer Fields Press First Dalkey Archive Edition: 2011   Let’s start with the cover. When this first arrived in the mail, I was certain that Ingram had sent it to me on accident. It looks nothing like ...

“Reading Christine Montalbetti” by Warren Motte

As part of a larger series of initiatives involving Open Letter and Dalkey Archive Press, over the next few months, we'll be running a number of articles from CONTEXT magazine, a tabloid-style magazine started by John O'Brien and Dalkey Archive in 2000 as a way of introducing booksellers and readers to innovative writers ...

What Did We Have to Talk About, Now That He Was Dead? [CONTEXT]

As part of a larger series of initiatives involving Open Letter and Dalkey Archive Press, over the next few months, we'll be running a number of articles from CONTEXT magazine, a tabloid-style magazine started by John O'Brien and Dalkey Archive in 2000 as a way of introducing booksellers and readers to innovative writers ...