
Parasol Against the Axe
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Dorje Swallow
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By:
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Helen Oyeyemi
ONE OF BIBLIOLIFESTYLE’S “BEST LITERARY FICTION OF 2024”
"A shape-shifting novel about the power of stories…Helen Oyeyemi is a literary pied piper—her voice is the kind that readers gamely follow into the most bewildering and unnerving of situations."–The New York Times
“A metatextual masterpiece.”—Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
“Oyeyemi writes here as an heir to Calvino or Borges…A dizzying, dazzling romp.”—Kirkus Reviews
The prize-winning, bestselling author of Peaces and Gingerbread returns with a novel about competitive friendship, the elastic boundaries of storytelling, and the meddling influence of a city called Prague
In Helen Oyeyemi’s joyous new novel, the Czech capital is a living thing—one that can let you in or spit you out.
For reasons of her own, Hero Tojosoa accepts an invitation she was half expected to decline, and finds herself in Prague on a bachelorette weekend hosted by her estranged friend Sofie. Little does she know she’s arrived in a city with a penchant for playing tricks on the unsuspecting. A book Hero has brought with her seems to be warping her mind: the text changes depending on when it’s being read and who’s doing the reading, revealing startling new stories of fictional Praguers past and present. Uninvited companions appear at bachelorette activities and at city landmarks, offering opinions, humor, and even a taste of treachery. When a third woman from Hero and Sofie’s past appears unexpectedly, the tensions between the friends’ different accounts of the past reach a new level.
An adventurous, kaleidoscopic novel, Parasol Against the Axe considers the lines between illusion and delusion, fact and interpretation, and weighs the risks of attaching too firmly to the stories of a place, or a person, or a shared history. How much is a tale influenced by its audience, or vice versa? And finally, in a battle between friends, is it better to be the parasol or the axe?
©2024 Helen Oyeyemi (P)2024 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
One of The BBC's “12 Best Books of 2024 so far”
“Delightfully weird.”—TIME
“An intimate, opulent portrait of Prague.”—The Washington Post
"Mind-bending. Parasol Against the Axe is a book about a physical place, the stories that make up that place, and the disembodied plane on which those stories and that place meet."—The Atlantic
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As a narrator, Dorje Swallow is exceptional. So many characters to handle, which he did with perfectly distinct voices, not to mention handling Czech. I'm already looking for other books he performs.
I listened to it twice in immediate succession, and I'm glad I did. I was able to fall more freely into the second reading, and my linear brain could be told to wait on the sofa til I was done. Maybe not my very favorite of Oyeyemi's novels (some hit right at the right time), but a joy nonetheless, and I will listen again. Recommended for people who embrace surrealism, playfulness, fluidity, narrative acrobatics, and phrases that sparkle like gemstones, and narration that is nothing short of bewitching.
A surrealist chocolate box of delights
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Amazing concept for a book
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Narrator’s Czech accent sounds like a low budget Dracula
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