Fiction. Nora comes across a newspaper article about her lost twin that sets in motion her search for her doppelganger and thrusts her from the safe island life that she has created and into a sweeping surrealist escapade, buried in the depths of an undifferentiated dream of ocean. Drifting through the foggy myths of her past, she practices spycraft and lessons of Do-gen Zenji and follows her guardian angel stepmother's advice that when traveling to lands unknown, always bring bread, milk, and ham (gifts for spontaneous bribes). Veils of betrayal and isolation are lifted as Nora navigates systems of story (fairytale and science); belief and faith (spiritual and mythological); and reality (phenomenological and truth). As in many travel odysseys, the fictions of space, time, and being are placed under a microscope and an ever-unraveling solitary journey loosens onto an always uncanny, sometime hilarious, interdependent adventure.
Author City: NEW YORK, NY USA
Martine Bellen is the author of the novella 2X(SQUARED) (BlazeVOX Books, 2010) and seven collections of poetry, including GHOSTS! (Spuyten Duyvil, 2011), THE VULNERABILITY OF ORDER (Copper Canyon Press, 2001); FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE MONKEY GOD (Spuyten Duyvil); TALES OF MURASAKI AND OTHER POEMS (Sun & Moon Press, 1999), which won the National Poetry Series Award; and PLACES PEOPLE DARE NOT ENTER (Potes & Poets Press, 1991). A bilingual collection of her poetry has been published in Germany by Verlag im Waldgut (translator, Hans Juergen Balmes). She has written the libretto for Ovidiana, an opera based on Ovid's Metamorphoses (composer, Matthew Greenbaum) that has been performed in New York City and Philadelphia. She has collaborated with David Rosenboom on Ah! Opera No-Opera, a pioneering collective work, that's been co-composed and performed by creators from around the globe. Its world premiere was in September 2009 at Redcat in Los Angeles. She was a recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation residency in Bellagio, Italy, as well as an American Academy of Poets Award.
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