A supposedly long lost collection of fable-like stories supposedly written by the little-known middle European writer Maxim Guyavitch ... with a helpful intro and afterword making it hilariously clear that the keyword is "supposedly."In the novel WHO'S WHO WHEN EVERYONE IS SOMEONE ELSE, the character "C.D. Rose" (not to be confused with the author C.D. Rose) searches an unnamed middle-European city for the long-lost manuscript of a little-known writer named Maxim Guyavitch. That search was fruitless, but in THE BLIND ACCORDIONIST, "C.D. Rose" has found the manuscript—nine sparkling, fable-like short stories—and he presents them here with an (hilarious) introduction explaining the discovery, and an afterword providing (hilarious) critical commentary on the stories, and what they might reveal about the mysterious Guyavitch. THE BLIND ACCORDIONIST is another masterful book of world-making by the real C.D. Rose, absorbing in its mix of intelligence and...

A story that takes place on a train. About building a world out of matchsticks. About brothers. About drinking. About things that matter.

“A book that belongs on the same shelf as Italo Calvino’s “If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler,” Nabokov’s “Pale Fire”, and several works by Zoran Zivkovic, Stanislaw Lem and David Markson.” — Michael Dirda, The Washington PostA collection of entrancing literary fables from an underrated master of the form …Perfect for the fans of David Mitchell, Julio Cortázar and Steven Barthelme are these 15 dreamlike tales.Welcome to the fictional universe of C. D. Rose, whose stories seem to be set in some unidentifiable but vaguely Mitteleuropean nation, and likewise have an uncanny sense of timelessness — the time could be some cobblestoned Victorian past era, or the present, or even the future.A journalist’s interview with an artist turns into a dizzying roundelay of memory and image. Two Russian brothers, one blind and one deaf, build an intricate...

A darkly comic, satirical reference book about writers who never made it into the literary canonA signal event of literary scholarship, The Biographical Dictionary of Literary Failure compiles the biographies of history's most notable cases of a complete lack of literary success. As such, it is the world's leading authority on the subject.Compiled in one volume by C. D. Rose, a well-educated person universally acknowledged in parts of England as the world's pre-eminent expert on inexpert writers, the book culls its information from lost or otherwise ignored archives scattered around the globe, as well as the occasional dustbin.The dictionary amounts to a monumental accomplishment: the definitive appreciation of history's least accomplished writers. Thus immortalized beyond deserving and rescued from hard-earned obscurity, the authors presented in this historic volume comprise a who's who of the talentless and deluded, their stories timeless...