{"product_id":"the-golden-age-9781564785787","title":"The Golden Age","description":"\u003ci\u003eThe Golden Age\u003c\/i\u003e is a fantastical travelogue in which a modern-day Gulliver writes a book about a civilization he once encountered on a tiny island in the Atlantic. The islanders seem at first to do nothing but sit and observe the world, and indeed draw no distinction between reality and representation, so that a mirror image seems as substantial to them as a person (and vice versa); but the center of their culture is revealed to be \"The Book,\" a handwritten, collective novel filled with feuding royal families, murderous sorcerers, and narrow escapes. Anyone is free to write in \"The Book,\" adding their own stories, crossing out others, or even appending \"footnotes\" in the form of little paper pouches full of extra text-but of course there are pouches within pouches, so that the story is impossible to read \"in order,\" and soon begins to overwhelm the narrator's orderly treatise.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eMichal Ajvaz is a Czech novelist, poet, critic. Born into a family of Russian exiles in Prague in 1949, he studied at Prague's \u003cbr\u003eCharles University and works at the Prague Centre for Theoretical \u003cbr\u003eStudies. In addition to his fiction and poetry, he has published \u003cbr\u003emonographs on Derrida and Borges. He received the Jaroslav Siefert \u003cbr\u003ePrize in 2005 for his novel \u003cem\u003ePrázdné ulice\u003c\/em\u003e (\u003cem\u003eEmpty Streets\u003c\/em\u003e), and in 2020 was awarded the Czech State Award for Literature.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAndrew Oakland is a translator from Czech and German who resides in Brno. His translations include Michal Ajvaz's \u003ci\u003eThe \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cem\u003eGolden Age\u003c\/em\u003e and Radka Denemarková's \u003cem\u003eMoney from Hitler.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Dalkey Archive Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50505207120146,"sku":"9781564785787","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_b9190ccf-88dc-4de5-9c0c-11ed04188b51.jpg?v=1730835559","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-golden-age-9781564785787","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}