Didier Coste

Anonymous of Troy Didier Coste

Publisher Marketing: Following a long creative practice of the sonnet (La Lecon d'Otilia, 1995), Anonymous of Troy inaugurates a new exploration of doubleness and overlay in terms of place, time and feeling, sustained by an equal doubleness in terms of form and language. The scene is Canakkale, Turkey, facing Gelibolu on the other shore of the Dardanelles. But Gallipoli is a piece of ANZAC peering through the mirror of Port Jackson. The scene is Abydos facing Sestos, where Hero is still waiting for Leander. But the scene is also Truva, facing the infinite a few miles south, where Johnny Anadolu got the better of Achilles Johnson. The worldwide scene is then, thousands of years ago, as primitive as Parramatta today, the girl of both times will recognise herself in the TV commercial. Isolettric verse, sound play, anagrams, are cadenced to protect modernity against its ageing. "Coste's novel Days in Sydney is a work demanding certain critical acclaim. Bilingual, in direct touch with Australian creative writing, it brings to the latter a contribution of the highest distinction." - Robert Pickering "The poems are very accomplished. One doesn't usually encounter such a range of learning in poems these days and Coste manages to be highly evocative, too, drawing upon classical themes in a modern setting." - Paul Kane"