TOBY PRESS PUBLISHES SECOND TITLE FROM ACCLAIMED GERMAN WRITER

Katharina Hacker's Morpheus to be Released in July2003

"When, on Circe's advice, Odysseus commanded his men to row to the realm of the dead, who do you think was the first person he met there? The dead travel faster, I had already been waiting for days. Bury me, I begged Odysseus, lest the gods punish you, and he promised me that he would. Let me tell you, he didn't bury me, the gods didn't punish him, and Homer lied." ("Elpenor", Morpheus)

In the seven exquisitely crafted stories of MORPHEUS (Toby Press, July 2003), the world of classical mythology comes to life - in ways you would never expect. Katharina Hacker's vivid, literate imagination has created a masterpiece, seven interlinked stories, of figures of Greek antiquity inexplicably-or explicably-living in the modern world. Odysseus never buried Elpenor, so now he sits around train stations, drinking, bending the ear of any unsuspecting traveler to whom he can grumble. Sisyphus is still rolling the stone the gods condemned him with , but now he's doing it in a hotel room, to the consternation of the hotelier who is more than a little bemused by his strange guest. These are poignant, potent tales, addressing the ageless themes of (mythological) past and present, memory and dream, speech and silence, love and loss, guilt, and frustration. MORPHEUS epitomizes the human condition through a poetic, vivid, and often rhythmic prose. The mood is sometimes ghostly, sometimes sad, but all these stories are imbued with a triste humor. Hacker's ease with classical figures is reflected in their immediacy for the contemporary reader.

Katharina Hacker was born in Frankfurt/Main in 1967, and studied history and Jewish studies at Freiburg University. In 1990 she continued her studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and at the School for Cultural Studies in Tel Aviv. Her first book, The Lifeguard, was published to great critical acclaim in Germany and is available from The Toby Press. Katharina Hacker has lived in Berlin since 1996, where she writes and translates.