'In the dying days of the Russian Empire, a Scottish sound recordist disappears into the Caucasus mountains; a former hero of the Algerian resistance experiments with traditional Chinese medicine; a French anatomical artist models disfigured soldiers returned from the Crimea; in 1960s Poland, a grandmother hatches a plan when a Hollywood star comes to town; during the war in Vietnam, fate and superstition guide a Filipino cook toward a new vocation; in Weimar Berlin, a young man’s efforts to rehabilitate himself are derailed by a charismatic artist...
'Confronting, moving, and brilliantly original, Kyra Giorgi’s fascinating stories loop through time and place to delve into the lives of those caught at the articulation points of history. Deftly balancing the personal and the political with the historical and the medical, they explore the impact of conflict, the ethics of treatment and care, and the lengths to which we will go to preserve who we are.' (Publication summary)
Dedication: for my mum
'To find a collection of short stories so perfectly themed as The Circle and the Equator is a rare gift. These stories take us on a grand tour of the world, shifting in time, with each location bound to an historical event, often a violent one. They explore the lives of ordinary people confronted by extraordinary moments in history. The stories are in no discernible order with the first being set in 1978 Angola, the second in Berlin in 1921, the third in Hiroshima in 1952, and so on. However, what links them is an expression of often indifferent and random violence, sometimes because of conflict and war, and the aftermath this has on these people’s lives.' (Introduction)
'The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.’ L.P. Hartley’s now proverbial observation at the start of The Go-Between (1953) functions as a statement of fact and a warning. The writer who wishes to traverse the terrain between a nation’s present and its past must navigate a minefield – linguistic, cultural, and historical. Therefore, when you attempt to navigate not only across time but across nations – say, Angola in 1986, Hiroshima in 1952, France in 1855 – the exercise is fraught with danger. But this is the ambitious task that Kyra Giorgi has set herself in her first book of fiction, The Circle and the Equator, a collection of thirteen short stories.' (Introduction)
'The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.’ L.P. Hartley’s now proverbial observation at the start of The Go-Between (1953) functions as a statement of fact and a warning. The writer who wishes to traverse the terrain between a nation’s present and its past must navigate a minefield – linguistic, cultural, and historical. Therefore, when you attempt to navigate not only across time but across nations – say, Angola in 1986, Hiroshima in 1952, France in 1855 – the exercise is fraught with danger. But this is the ambitious task that Kyra Giorgi has set herself in her first book of fiction, The Circle and the Equator, a collection of thirteen short stories.' (Introduction)
'To find a collection of short stories so perfectly themed as The Circle and the Equator is a rare gift. These stories take us on a grand tour of the world, shifting in time, with each location bound to an historical event, often a violent one. They explore the lives of ordinary people confronted by extraordinary moments in history. The stories are in no discernible order with the first being set in 1978 Angola, the second in Berlin in 1921, the third in Hiroshima in 1952, and so on. However, what links them is an expression of often indifferent and random violence, sometimes because of conflict and war, and the aftermath this has on these people’s lives.' (Introduction)
