The English versions of the blurbs:
Quote:
Rajeev Balasubramanyam
STARSTRUCK
Starstruck is a collection of ten interlinked narratives, each "starring" a celebrity to dark, surreal and often hilarious effect. Fanatical fan-boys attempt to lynch a woman digitally for daring to criticize Steve Jobs; David Beckham becomes rabidly politi[c]i[z]ed; and Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson make appearances beyond the grave. In Starstruck, Rajeev Balasubramanyam takes a scalpel to modern society, peeling back its skin to reveal the beauty, frailty and sheer [strangeness] of our species.
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Quote:
Jakob Nolte
ALFF
Jakob Nolte's debut novel ALFF tells of a series of murders at the High & Low High School in Beetaville, New England. A "fencecutioner" has killed Benjamin, the head of the debate club, and sewed his corpse to a fence. The murder sets in motion a string of bizarre events in the teenagers' lives, from the founding of the band La Deutsche Vita to the establishment of the Anachronistic Youth. After a second murder, Agent Donna Jones is summoned and [becomes] flummoxed by the seemingly unsolvable case. In the style of a high-school mystery thriller, ALFF takes us on a breakneck journey through an imaginary America of the 1990s. The novel is driven by irrepressible wonder and joy at American cultural imperialism, which is at a turning point between the death of Kurt Cobain and 9/11. Like the German novelist Karl May, a fantasist of the American Old West, Jakob Nolte writes about a country without the muddling interference of personal experience. The 25-year-old takes on film, TV, literature and real life — and wins.
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It's amusing that novelist Ben Marcus is one of the advisers and excellent that Ubu Web (a superb resource) is a partner.