Adam Bodor

The Sinistra Zone Adam Bodor

Lyrical, surreal, and yet unsettlingly realistic, The Sinistra Zone swims in the totalitarian backwaters of Eastern Europe

Entering a weird, remote hamlet, Andrei calls himself ?a simple wayfarer,? but he is in fact highly compromised: he has no identity papers. Taken under the wing of the military zone?s commander, Andrei is first assigned to guard the blueberries that supply a nearby bear reserve. He is surrounded by human wrecks, supernatural umbrellas, birds carrying plagues, albino twins.

The bears ? and an affair with a married woman ? occupy Andrei until his protector is replaced by a new female commander, ?a slender creature, quiet,diaphanous, like a dragonfly,? and yet an iron-fisted harridan. As things grow ever more alarming, Andrei becomes a ?corpse watchman,? standing guard over the dead to check for any signs of life, and then ?