'Good News: The worst has already happened.
'Bad News: Even worse is on the way.
'This is a fictional theory, a rant, a manifesto, an engagement or disengagement with the times, a record; it is bearing witness, a dramatisation of actual events, a horror-scape, either a monologue or dialogue, a testament, travel guide, handbook, textbook, potential encyclopaedia; it is five mini-novels or else five post-novels, an epic, a drop in the ocean, an homage, a reference, one long secret handshake, an agreement, a wink; it is an explosion of form, tangential, discursive, a firming of the foundations, a lament, an absurdist comedy with realism that is as realistic as it gets; it is a spectrum, shades of black from the dark to the next shade up from white, a proliferation, a step-back, a righting, a note to oneself, a line in the sand or a gust in the form of a structure-shaking gale; it is a dance (a two-footed, single-person line dance), an experiment, pure science, flicking the finger; it is, of course, backing away, crossing the street and avoiding eye contact; it is fantasy, humour, a romance without any leads, a defiance, a subdued rebellion, an anti-philosophical philosophy; it is pacifism that instigates a fight, a denouncement in the form of a laugh, an exploration, an adventure, a time-lapse, a panorama, a conclusion, you may just have to read the theory because these are just alluding-to-the-theory words.' (Publication summary)
'What kind of novel is most suited to these times of political and ecological instability, resurgent authoritarianism, misogyny and surveillance, an era where human complexity is reduced to simplistic identity categories and binary issues? Yumna Kassab’s The Theory of Everything is an ambitious answer. Both one book and five short books – or perhaps five short stories and five experimental texts – its fractal structure is intriguing and elusive.' (Introduction)
'What kind of novel is most suited to these times of political and ecological instability, resurgent authoritarianism, misogyny and surveillance, an era where human complexity is reduced to simplistic identity categories and binary issues? Yumna Kassab’s The Theory of Everything is an ambitious answer. Both one book and five short books – or perhaps five short stories and five experimental texts – its fractal structure is intriguing and elusive.' (Introduction)
