The appearance of any new work by Tibor Fischer is a cause for celebration. Here, are two dazzling new stories that show why he is so admired. The first,Crushed Mexican Spiders, is classic Fischer. Don't be fooled by the title: the poet laureate of London grime is on home ground as a women returns home to discover the key to her Brixton flat no longer works...
Haunting images and crisp one-liners are about all that link it with the second tale,Possibly Forty Ships, the true story of the Trojan War. In a scene straight out of a Tarantino movie, an old man is being tortured, pressed to reveal how the greatest legend of all really happened. (Let's just say it bears scant resemblance to Homer: 'If you see war as a few ships sinking in the middle of the waves, a few dozen warriors in armour, frankly not as gleaming as it could be, being welcomed whole-heartedly by the water, far, far away from Troy, if you see that as war, then it was a war...')
The stories are published in a beautiful small hardback edition, each one illustrated by the work of the acclaimed Czech photographer Hana Vojáková. The book has two front covers: read one way you're in south London at night; turn it over and youre being burned by the harsh glare of Mediterranean sunlight.
Tibor Fischer was born in Stockport in 1959 of Hungarian parents. Brought up in South London he was educated at Cambridge and worked as a journalist. He was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his first novel,Under the Frog, which also won the Betty Trask Award, and he was nominated as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists.
