Drawers & Booths by Ara 13 - Prize Winning Metafiction
Posted by: Robert Sandberg in Criticism, Literature, Reviews, Theory, tags: Ara 13Excerpts from the Amazon Review Page:
Book Description: Beginning as a modern military civil affairs action, Drawers & Booths spirals into a metafictional journey, testing the boundaries of reader and author, narrative voice, and characterization–the wrapping for Ara 13’s satirical analysis of morality in light of evolutionary psychology.
From the Publisher: An “Outstanding Book of the Year” Bronze Medal “Storyteller of the Year” About the Award: Drawers & Booths won an IPPY—the world’s largest international book awards competition, independent or otherwise. Ara 13 competed against releases from production houses such as, Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Yale, and other university presses, as well as Pulitzer finalist Dave Eggers’ production house, McSweeney’s, and Barnes & Nobles’ alliance press, iUniverse. Ara 13’s novel was selected from 3,175 entrants representing 16 countries: Trinidad to Thailand, Croatia to Czech Republic, and France to Finland. Drawers & Booths was one of 32 books to receive the moniker, “Outstanding Book of the Year,” and Ara won a Bronze Medal as “Storyteller of the Year.” According to 2008 Independent Publisher Book Awards, Ara 13 exhibits “the courage and creativity to take chances, break new ground, and bring about change, not only to the world of publishing, but to our society.”
From the Author: About Metafiction: Metafiction is the literary term describing fictional writing that self-consciously draws attention to its status as an artifact by challenging the relationship between fiction and reality. Metafiction reminds the reader that he or she is reading a fictional work. Often, when the boundary between reader and book is blurred, a metafictional device is employed. This can be mild, as with a first-person narrator acknowledging the reader; or it can be extreme and challenge the boundaries of reader and author, as with Drawers & Booths. This reading experience, though not spatially congruent is chronologically linear, which avoids reader disorientation. In short, the metafictional elements are meant to entertain, not confuse.
