DESCRIPTION

A darkly funny, surreal novel set in Chile and Peru, Albina and the Dog Men is Alejandro Jodorowsky’s sprawling modern myth in which sexual desire appears as a dangerous and generative force that mutates and transforms, unraveling identities and rending the social and moral fabric of a small town. Written with the stunning vision and cinematic flair he brought to his cult 1970s psychedelic freak-out films El Topo and Holy Mountain, Jodorowsky turns the classic stranger-comes-to-town narrative on its head in his novel Albina and the Dog-Men.

When two women, an amnesiac albino giantess and a woman called The Crab, arrive in this South American desert town, their otherworldly allure and unfettered sensuality and turns men into wild animals. A modern day Kafka story on hallucinogens, with strong doses of mysticism and horror, Albina and the Dog-Men reads like an ancient folk tale whispered at night, fused with an urgent critique of contemporary society. Its essence is dark magical realism that throws into question the nature of what it is to be human.

“Deeply psychological and mysterious, the book will stimulate the imagination of the reader's mind to the extreme.”

—Marina Abramovic

“Jodorowsky uses his fertile imagination to present a mixed bag of historical and imaginary characters, such as the Inca King, Atahualpa, and a cast of half-humans and half-beasts that possess magical powers… Very well crafted… Strongly recommended.”

—Publishers Weekly

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alejandro Jodorowsky was born to Ukrainian Jewish immigrants in Tocopilla, Chile. From an early age, he became interested in mime and theater; at the age of 23, he left for Paris to pursue the arts, and has lived there ever since. A friend and companion of Fernando Arrabal and Roland Topor, he founded the Panic movement and has directed several classic films of this style, including The Holy Mountain, El Topo and Santa Sangre. A mime artist, specialist in the art of tarot, and prolific author, he has written novels, poetry, short stories, essays, and over thirty successful comic books, working with such highly regarded comic book artists as Moebius and Bess. Restless Books will be publishing three of Jodorowsky's best-known books for the first time in English: Donde mejor canta un pájaro (Where the Bird Sings Best), El niño del jueves negro (The Son of Black Thursday), and Albina y los hombres perro (Albina and the Dog Men).

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Alfred MacAdam is professor of Latin American literature at Barnard College-Columbia University. He has translated works by Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa, Juan Carlos Onetti, José Donoso, and Jorge Volpi among others. He recently published an essay on the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa included in the Cambridge Companion to Autobiography.