New Releases by Ned Beauman

« Le roman de science-fiction de l’année » The Sunday Times « Brutalement satirique et sinistrement hilarant. » Daily Mail Treize centimètres de long. Des yeux globuleux. Une lèvre plus épaisse que l’autre... Le lompe venimeux est loin d’être le poisson le plus sexy de la planète. Autrement dit, la bestiole est moche à crever. Et pour arranger le tout, sa morsure est extrêmement douloureuse. L’anéantissement probable de cette espèce lors d’un accident minier quelque part en mer Baltique n’est donc pas un drame pour l’Humanité. Deux personnes, pourtant, ne l’entendent pas de cette oreille, pour des raisons diamétralement opposées. Karin Resaint, convaincue que le lompe venimeux pourrait jouer un rôle capital dans ses recherches sur l’intelligence animale. Mark Halyard, cadre sup’ de la compagnie minière, risquerait quant à lui très gros si le poisson avait vraiment disparu. Contraints de faire équipe, Karin et Mark vont traverser les paysages étranges d’une Europe du Nord qui va droit dans le mur, sur les traces de l’insaisissable poisson. Né en 1985, Ned Beauman est un prodige de la nouvelle littérature anglaise. Son second roman, L’Accident de téléportation (Joëlle Losfeld, 2015) a été finaliste du Man Booker Prize. Glow, également publié aux éditions Joëlle Losfeld, est paru en 2017. Poisson poison a reçu le prix Arthur C. Clarke.

Mark Halyard arbeitet als Umweltverträglichkeitskoordinator bei der Brahmasamudram Mining Company, die im Tiefseebergbau tätig ist und versehentlich den Lebensraum eines wenig bekannten Putzerfischs, des Gemeinen Lumpfischs, vernichtet hat. Um die Zerstörung des Planeten einzudämmen, sind Unternehmen gesetzlich verpflichtet, für viel Geld Auslöschungszertifikate zu erwerben, falls sie an der Ausrottung einer Spezies mitwirken. Allerdings hat sich Halyard mit Leerverkäufen von Lumpfisch-Zertifikaten verspekuliert. Nachdem er auf fallende Preise gewettet hat, stellt ein mysteriöser Hackerangriff auf diverse Biobanken, in denen Gewebeproben und Genomdaten gefährdeter Arten gespeichert werden, das System auf den Kopf. Alle Back-ups für den Gemeinen Lumpfisch sind futsch, und der Preis für Lumpfisch-Zertifikate geht durch die Decke. Halyards einzige Hoffnung ist, mithilfe der Lumpfisch-Expertin Karin Resaint irgendwo ein Exemplar des Fischs aufzutreiben, damit die Spezies nicht als ausgerottet gilt ... Ned Beaumans neuer Roman ist Literatur mit hohem Drehmoment, ein Buch voller Kapriolen, rasant und mit großer Fabulierfreude erzählt. Noch nie wurden die wichtigen Themen unserer Zeit so humorvoll auf den Punkt gebracht wie hier.

A dark and witty story of environmental collapse and runaway capitalism from the Booker-listed author of The Teleportation Accident. The near future. Tens of thousands of species are going extinct every year. And a whole industry has sprung up around their extinctions, to help us preserve the remnants, or perhaps just assuage our guilt. For instance, the biobanks: secure archives of DNA samples, from which lost organisms might someday be resurrected . . . But then, one day, it’s all gone. A mysterious cyber-attack hits every biobank simultaneously, wiping out the last traces of the perished species. Now we’re never getting them back. Karin Resaint and Mark Halyard are concerned with one species in particular: the venomous lumpsucker, a small, ugly bottom-feeder that happens to be the most intelligent fish on the planet. Resaint is an animal cognition scientist consumed with existential grief over what humans have done to nature. Halyard is an exec from the extinction industry, complicit in the mining operation that destroyed the lumpsucker’s last-known habitat. Across the dystopian landscapes of the 2030s—a nature reserve full of toxic waste; a floating city on the ocean; the hinterlands of a totalitarian state—Resaint and Halyard hunt for a surviving lumpsucker. And the further they go, the deeper they’re drawn into the mystery of the attack on the biobanks. Who was really behind it? And why would anyone do such a thing? Virtuosic and profound, witty and despairing, Venomous Lumpsucker is Ned Beauman at his very best.

La revista Luvina y la Editorial de la Universidad de Guadalajara reúnen estos cien Cuentos de Asia, Europa y América para celebrar el número 100 de Luvina y sus veinticinco años ininterrumpidos de publicación. Son textos representativos de la literatura universal contemporánea que Luvina ha publicado, especialmente en los números dedicados al país invitado de honor de la Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara. Es una muestra formada por distintas literaturas, en el afán de nombrar nuevos y originales mundos, en una dimensión habitada en su totalidad por la lengua. Cada uno de los cuentos permite internarse en la singularidad humana al mismo tiempo que en los entramados de los relatos, cuya belleza encierra vitalidad y resignificación de lo real gracias al encuentro de la creatividad y la imaginación del autor, la obra y el lector.

Our bodies all have stories to tell - and who better to tell them than fifteen of the world''s finest writers? Buried beneath layers of flesh, our hearts pump, our lungs inflate, our kidneys filter. These organs, and others, are essential to our survival but remain largely unknown to us. In Beneath the Skin, fifteen writers each explore a different body part: Naomi Alderman unravels the intestines and our obsession with food; Thomas Lynch celebrates the womb as a miracle; AL Kennedy explores the nose''s striking ability to conjure memories; and Philip Kerr traces the remarkable history of brain surgery. The human stomach, we discover, contains as many brain cells as a cat has in its head. The lungs weigh about the same as a loaf of bread. A traumatic memory can show itself on the skin. Moving, comical and often unexpected, this is an awe-inspiring voyage through the mysterious landscape of our bodies. Based on the BBC Radio 3 series ''A Body of Essays''.

In 1938, two rival expeditions descend on an ancient temple recently discovered in the jungles of Honduras, one intending to shoot a huge Hollywood production on location there, the other to disassemble the temple and ship it back to New York. A seemingly endless stalemate ensues. Twenty years later, a rogue CIA agent sets out to exploit the temple for his own ends, unaware that it is a locus of conspiracies far grander than anyone could ever have guessed. Shot through with intrigue, ingenuity, and adventure, and showcasing Beauman’s riotous humor, spectacular imagination, and riveting prose, Madness Is Better Than Defeat is a novel without parallel: inventive, anarchic, and delightfully insane.

British artist James White (b. 1967) is renowned for his monochrome paintings that explore everyday minutiae.Working from his own photographs, an ostensibly insignificant detail or moment is prolonged, the act of painting introducing layers of time to a given moment.Seemingly quiet domestic environments have a strong psychological element, alluding to a human presence without depicting any individuals; hinting at something that has occurred or that is occurring.Comprising full colour images, details and installation shots, this publication spans the past six years of James White''s oeuvre and is published on the occasion of his exhibition, BODIES at Blain Southern, London (22 November 2017 - 20 January 2018).

South London, May 2010: foxes are behaving strangely, Burmese immigrants are going missing, and everyone is trying to get hold of a new party drug called Glow. A young man suffering from a rare sleep disorder will uncover the connections between all these anomalies in this taut, riveting new novel by a young writer hailed by The Guardian as “playful, arresting, unnerving, opulent, rude and—above all—deliciously, startlingly, exuberantly fresh.” Twenty-two-year-old Raf spends his days walking Rose, a bull terrier who guards the transmitters for a pirate radio station, and his nights at raves in warehouses and launderettes. When his friend Theo vanishes without a trace, Raf’s efforts to find him will lead straight into the heart of a global corporate conspiracy. Meanwhile, he’s falling in love with a beautiful young woman he met at one of those raves, but he’ll soon discover that there is far more to Cherish than meets the eye. Combining the pace, drama, and explosive plot twists of a thriller with his trademark intellectual, linguistic, and comedic pyrotechnics, Glow is Ned Beauman’s most compelling, virtuosic, and compulsively readable novel yet.

Egon Loeser n’est pas un héros banal. C’est un obsédé sexuel mais il ne couche jamais ou presque. Il est obnubilé par une jeune femme, Adele Hitler (aucun rapport avec Adolf), plongée dans la débauche la plus totale. Il est aussi obsédé par la téléportation mais toutes ses tentatives de mettre en scène une machine capable de ce prodige échouent lamentablement. On suit ce drôle de type de 1931 à 1962, de Berlin à Paris en passant par Los Angeles et Washington, D.C. Il est le jouet des événements et des rencontres dans ce roman qui fourmille astucieusement de personnages secondaires jubilatoires. Loeser ne maîtrise pas grand-chose, participe même à un autodafé à Berlin en 1933, pensant qu’il s’agit d’une joyeuse réunion d’étudiants. Il n’est pas loin de se prendre pour un justicier sorti tout droit des pages d’un roman noir. Mais demeure cette grande question : arrivera-t-il à faire l’amour avec Adele ? "L’accident de téléportation est un roman singulier – singulièrement intelligent, singulièrement audacieux, singulièrement bizarre – d’un singulier jeune auteur témérairement doué." Ben Cosgrove, Time.

The second volume of Arc continues with an issue that wants to peel back the futuristic shine. So we bettered ourselves, had us a couple of revolutions - agricultural, industrial - and then before we knew it our inventions had raised the seas and fried the atmosphere, reshuffled our knowledge and commodified our pleasures; they even stole our privacy. Our lives are good, but not fair at all - and signs are we’re coming to a stormy end. Our masters tell us they’ll figure things out. With predictions and scenarios, models and forecasts, they’ll find a way through the coming storms and shortages. But what if they can’t? What if it’s all moonshine, and they’re just slapping on chromewash to cover their panic and powerlessness? In Chromewash original stories scratch and scuff the oh-so-shiny prediction business. Ned Beauman plays the markets, Jane Rogers puts a market price on identity, Tim Maughan games the art market, and Matthew De Abaitua wonders what happens when creatives get destructive. Also in this issue, Joanna Kavenna learns to mistrust Al Gore’s first-person plural, and M. John Harrison examines the special weapons and tactics of English Heritage. Medical ethicist Peter Hajek’s modest proposal tackles an ageing planet; Adam Rothstein spins a ghost story out of vapourware; Marek Kohn decides that the past has a future, too; and Brendan Byrne recalls the moment modern statecraft went cyberpunk.

Hilarante...Una novela que es, al mismo tiempo, seriamente inteligente y seriamente divertida. Tim Martin, The Daily Telegraph Infinitamente ingeniosa y furiosamente imaginativa. Beauman, a sus veintisiete años, se consolida como un escritor consumado y formidable. El autor hace ostentación de, una manera casi indecente, de lo que disfruta con las palabras. Un libro deslumbrante y entretenido...brillante e inteligente. Washington Post La historia es «algo que sucede mientras estás colgado». Por eso, a pesar de que El accidente del teletransporte empieza en Berlín y en pleno auge del nazismo, no es una novela sobre los nazis. Egon Loeser tiene dos obsesiones: volver a hacer el amor con una mujer y montar un escenario que reproduzca un artilugio inventado en el Renacimiento que era capaz de mover a los actores en el espacio y en el tiempo. Una novela de aventuras culta, llena de guiños históricos y, sobre todo, divertidísima. Las peripecias del protagonista nos llevan a las fiestas del Berlín de los años treinta donde en cualquier momento puede aparecer Bertolt Brecht, al París de Hemingway y Picasso y al Los Ángeles de los judíos exiliados, los millonarios y los excomunistas. Un homenaje a la imaginación.

«La macchina fatale pullula di idee, freme di vitalità ed è così divertente che lo si divora». James Kidd, The Independent «Beauman tratta gli appetiti sessuali di un ragazzo adolescente con la verve di un giovane Amis, e questo romanzo è uno spasso, delizioso nella sua originalità». Lisa Appignanesi, Prospect «Con un colpo di scena dopo l’altro, questo libro è uno spettacolo straordinario di pulci ammaestrate che richiama alla mente Pynchon». Phil Baker, The Sunday Times «Magnifico... con un protagonista, scenografo teatrale tedesco, troppo assetato di sesso, troppo vittimista e, di solito, troppo impegnato a smaltire la sbornia per notare gli avvenimenti storici attorno a lui». Joe Dunthorne, The Guardian «Tra i più promettenti scrittori del Regno Unito, il ventisettenne londinese Ned Beauman riscrive i parametri del romanzo storico, contaminandolo di elementi di fantascienza e noir». Vogue

Berlijn 1930. Egon Loeser is een egoïst. Als set designer wil hij de fameuze zeventiende-eeuwse decorontwerper Lavicini overtreffen en diens teleportatiemachine verbeteren die bij de eerste vertoning explodeerde en vele dodelijke slachtoffers maakte. Intussen probeert hij de mooie Adele Hitler geen familie van voor zich te winnen. Zijn omzwervingen voeren hem van de experimentele theaters in Berlijn via de absintcafés van Parijs naar de filmsets in Los Angeles. Twee levensvragen drijven hem: wat ging er mis bij Lavicinis truc en waarom moet hij zo veel moeite doen om Adele in zijn bed te krijgen? In deze historischfuturistische roman slaagt Loeser erin niet één van de wereldschokkende gebeurtenissen van zijn tijd mee te krijgen. `Een absurd boek: WOII als decor voor hipster-kritiek. **** Vrij Nederland `Een intellectueel bravourestukje vol bruisende levenskracht. Schrijver Adam Foulds `Zowel het meest politiek incorrecte als het grappigste boek van dit decennium. Sunday Telegraph `Onthutsend brutaal, origineel, hilarisch en vreselijk spannend. Sunday Times `Duizelingwekkend, knap en inventief. Een boek waar je energie van krijgt. Independent

Egon Loeser''s carnal misfortunes will push him from the experimental theatres of Berlin to the absinthe bars of Paris to the physics laboratories of Los Angeles, trying all the while to solve the mystery of whether it was really a deal with Satan that claimed the life of his hero, Adriano Lavicini.

Long-listed for the 2012 Man Booker Prize, The Teleportation Accident is a hilarious sci-fi noir about sex, Satan, and teleportation devices. When you haven''t had sex in a long time, it feels like the worst thing that could ever happen. If you''re living in Germany in the 1930s, it probably isn''t. But that''s no consolation to Egon Loeser, whose carnal misfortunes will push him from the experimental theaters of Berlin to the absinthe bars of Paris to the physics laboratories of Los Angeles, trying all the while to solve two mysteries: Was it really a deal with Satan that claimed the life of his hero, Renaissance set designer Adriano Lavicini, creator of the so-called Teleportation Device? And why is it that a handsome, clever, modest guy like him can''t-just once in a while-get himself laid? Ned Bauman has crafted a stunningly inventive, exceptionally funny, dangerously unsteady and (largely) coherent novel about sex, violence, space, time, and how the best way to deal with history is to ignore it.

From the "effervescent" (Washington Post) author of Madness is Better than Defeat and The Teleportation Accident, a rollicking novel about fascism, boxing, entomology, eugenics, and desire. Kevin "Fishy" Broom has his nickname for a reason: he has a rare genetic condition that makes him smell markedly like rotting fish. Consequently, he rarely ventures out of the London apartment where he deals online in Nazi memorabilia. But when Fishy stumbles upon a crime scene, he finds himself on the long-cold trail of a pair of small-time players in interwar British history. First, there''s Philip Erskine, a fascist gentleman entomologist who dreams of breeding an indomitable beetle as tribute to Reich Chancellor Hitler''s glory, all the while aspiring to arguably more sinister projects in human eugenics. And then there''s Seth "Sinner" Roach, a homosexual Jewish boxer, nine-toed, runtish, brutish--but perfect in his way--who becomes an object of obsession for Erskine, professionally and most decidedly otherwise. What became of the boxer? What became of the beetle? And what will become of anyone who dares to unearth the answers? Ned Beauman spins out a dazzling narrative across decades and continents, weaving his manic fiction through the back alleys of history. Boxer, Beetle is a remarkably assured, wildly enjoyable debut.