A Modern Don Juan: Cantos for These Times by Divers Hands has been published by Five Leaves Publications, Nottingham UK.
Edited by Andy Croft and N. S. Thompson, it follows the sexual and other adventures of Byron's picaresque anti-hero in the 21st century, with ottava rima cantos written by Ben Borek, Andy Croft, Claudia Davebtry, Ian Duhig, Rachel Hadas, W. N. Herbert, George Jowett, John Lucas, Amit Majmudar, Sinead Morrissey, A. E. Stallings, Geirge Szirtes, N. S. Thompson, Tim Thorne and Mike Wilson.
It was chosen by Blake Morrison in The Guardian as one of the books of the year.
Unfortunately it is not available in Australian bookstores, but it can be purchased online via Amazon or Inpress.
I hope you enjoy it
Tim Thorne
'I hope it is no crime / To laugh at all things', wrote Byron in Don Juan; 'for I wish to know / What, after all, are all things but a show?' Two hundred years after Byron turned his back on the hypocrisy and cant of his native England, fifteen contemporary poets pay homage to Byron s greatest satirical creation by writing a new Don Juan for our own age of cant. A Modern Don Juan follows the sexual adventures of Byron's picaresque anti-hero in the twenty-first century. Mixing Low Comedy and High Seriousness, the book follows night-club DJ Donald Johnson as he stumbles from one romantic disaster to the next. Along the way, the authors pass comment on the customs and common-sense of the contemporary world. Donny seeks his fortune in Cameron's Britain, Berlusconi's Italy and Sydney's clubland. He is a London restaurant critic, a Brussels Eurocrat and a reality TV celeb. If you are quick you can catch him in Greece, Budapest, Central America, a prison cell even in Outer Space. He is indeed new Don Juan for the twenty-first century.
No comments:
Post a Comment