Mertvyi otets - Bartelmi D.

Donald Bartelmi (1931-1989) - American writer, one of the pillars of literary postmodernism of the 20th century, master of short prose. The author of 4 novels, about 20 collections of short stories, essays, parodies, ephemera and other things (often illustrated). The winner of a dozen very prestigious American literary awards, whose titles, unfortunately, will say little to the current Russian reader. His novels in the Russian-speaking space were a little less fortunate than the stories: they were published two, the first and the last, as well as the only children's story. But the stages of American literature were his novels. "Dead Father" (1975) is just such a legendary novel - about the wandering of a vaguely defined entity, symbolizing fatherhood, which on cables drag some of his children through the country of vendors, to a certain purpose, which becomes clear only in the very end of the novel. The very fabric of storytelling consists of anecdotes, stories, stories, dialogues, reflections and allegories, narrative registers are constantly switched, styles are subjected to skilful juggling. Humor and verbal play, as in other works of Barthelme, also, of course, are available. This is one of the most influential novels of the classics of American absurdity, a powerful metaphor for the relationship between parents and children, gods and people; here anything means a lot of things, the book will make fans happy to build symbolic gardens, and fans of cleverly arranged poison humor, and fans of Beckett.