Henry Holt and Co. – serie

Written by an inimitable new voice, The Age of Calamities is a genre-defying, mind-bending collection of absurdist, funny, and speculative short stories. In this bold debut collection, Senaa Ahmad pushes the boundaries of history and its figures, sending the reader on a thrilling ride. In "Let's Play Dead," Henry VIII wants Anne Boleyn gone, but there's a tiny problem-she keeps coming back to life no matter what he does. "Choose Your Own Apocalypse" hurls readers back to 1945, where they assume the role of a technician for the Manhattan Project, confronted with labyrinthine paths and harrowing outcomes. And "Inside the House of the Historian" invites us to a dinner party turned murder mystery full of figures like Nefertiti, Queen Victoria, John Adams, and Marilyn Monroe. These stories and others entice readers to confront the past, the present, and themselves all at once. Zany and haunting, inviting and brilliant, each poignant tale delves into the surreal and tragicomic nature of the present through the lens of yesterday.The Age of Calamities is an evocation of life and death on history's unsteady margins, of how to reckon with the blunt-force trauma of ill-fated times. Fiercely clever and wildly inventive, this debut establishes Senaa Ahmad as a literary force.

An elegant and haunting dystopian novel about a group of individuals gathered to relearn how to navigate the world after a mysterious illness strips them of their memoriesNestled in an idyllic locale beside the sea, The Center is a place of rehabilitation and rebuilding. Students arrive nameless, their memories and sense of identity wiped by a strange illness.Each day, they attend classes that will help them relearn the right ways to speak and live; they practice the roles they’ll assume once they’ve graduated and returned to society. In their free time, they negotiate a burgeoning social hierarchy and watch old DVDs together; stories of characters whose names they adopt: Maria, Chandler, Chino, Gunther . . . But as errant memories of errands, pets, lovers, beloved books, and careers begin to threaten the strict curriculum of The Center, students begin to question the definitions given to them, and explore the ways in which they might define themselves.A stunning, beautifully told story about what makes us who we are, The Definitions examines the limits of language, the power of human connection, and the ways the human spirit can flourish even under the most oppressive conditions.