Jamie James: Rimbaud in Java

USA 2011, 128 pp. with numerous colour illustrations, brochure, € 13.95
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Österreichs.
Editions Didier Miller
In »A Season in Hell«, at the age of 18, the French poet Arthur Rimbaud predicted the rest of his life: »My day is done. I'm leaving Europe. The sea air will burn my lungs. Lost climes will tan my skin.« 3 years later, in 1876, he joined the Royal Army of the Dutch Indies as an infantryman and sailed for Java, where he promptly deserted and fled into the jungle. It was the most enigmatic passage in a life crowded with puzzles and contrarieties. In »Rimbaud in Java« - the first book devoted to Rimbaud's lost voyage to Asia - novelist and critic James reviews everything that is known about the episode. From there, he imaginatively spirals into a reconstruction of what the poet must have seen and informed speculation about what he might have done, recreating life in 19th-century Java along the way.

Jamie James: Andrew and Joey

USA 2003, 291 pp., brochure, € 15.39
Kostenloser Versand innerhalb Österreichs.
What on earth can a hot-blooded Cajun choreographer and a perpetually unemployed, upper crust, all-American Asian possibly have in common? Absolutely nothing - except a college alma mater, and some tranquil years of gay marriage in an antique-filled Greenwich Village apartment. But that's about to come to an end now that rising star Joey Breaux has landed a sought-after grant to fund a year of study and dance in Bali - with his reluctant lover in tow. Soon Andrew and Joey are enjoying an unbridled sexual renaissance in a land rife with lush foliage, seamy nightlife, and native boys in sarongs - a land where the charismatic Joey is warmly welcomed, and his ethnic Chinese lover is routinely ignored or hated. The honeymoon proves as shortlived as the Bali high from a potent slushy cocktail when, as an oblivious Andrew briskly sets up housekeeping, Joey plunges into a whirlwind of dance and debauchery, fueled by secret, insatiable lust for his virile young stage partner, Wayan. Conscience-bound to come clean, Joey assumes Andrew will understand. Surely he'll overlook this indiscretion. Surely their relationship won't end over something so trivial. So what's a formerly contented, not-quite-committed couple to do? Make a go of it under separate roofs - on separate continents - and figure out that sooner or later, they'll find their way back to each other or find the courage to say goodbye.