Book with Twelve Tales

Gallas John

"The Book with Twelve Tales" is a gallimaufry of stories: comic, frightening, exotic and magical. Here, in John Gallas's richly imagined narrative worlds, are the American gothic of Morten Mortenssen, the pig who eats his owners; the sexual folktale of a comedy of Mongolian marriage; a fable of the power of the imagination as a poet is interrogated by a president. Then there is the terrifying Arctic potentate Zigismund Walrus in his nightmare palace of ice, and the true adventure of the author and Turkish rabies. Gallas's exuberant language draws the reader into twists of plot and dialogue, through tales of evil and violence, love and generosity that reaffirm the power of humour and the value of shared wisdoms.

About the Author

John Gallas was born in 1950 in Wellington, New Zealand. He came to England in 1971 to study Old Icelandic at Oxford, and stayed. He has worked for many years as a teacher with the Leicestershire Behaviour Support Team. He has published ten collections of poetry with Carcanet Press and edited the anthology of world poetry "The Song Atlas" (2002). Swims like a fish, cycles like a windmill.

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