{
    "id": 383459,
    "slug": "the-golden-age-michal-ajvaz",
    "nstc": null,
    "title": "The golden age",
    "subtitle": null,
    "collection_title": null,
    "collection_part_number": null,
    "annotation": null,
    "description": "The Golden Age is a fantastical travelogue in which a modern-day Gulliver attempts a treatise on a tiny island civilization in the Atlantic. The islanders seem at first to do nothing but sit and observe the world, and indeed draw no distinction between reality and representation, so that a mirror image seems as substantial to them as a person (and vice versa); but the center of their culture is revealed to be \u201cThe Book,\u201d a handwritten, collective novel filled with feuding royal families, murderous sorcerers, and narrow escapes. Anyone is free to write in \u201cThe Book,\u201d adding their own stories, crossing out others, or even appending \u201cfootnotes\u201d in the form of little paper pouches full of extra text\u2014but of course there are pouches within pouches, so that the story is impossible to read \u201cin order,\u201d and soon begins to overwhelm the narrator\u2019s orderly treatise.\n\nNovelist, poet, critic, and translator Michal Ajvaz was born into a Russian family in Prague in 1949.  He studied at Prague\u2019s Charles University and works at the Prague Centre for Theoretical Studies; in addition to his fiction and poetry, he\u2019s published monographs on Derrida and Borges.  He received the Jaroslav Siefert Prize in 2005 for his novel Pr\u00e1zdn\u00e9 ulice (Empty Streets).\n",
    "imprint": null,
    "language_code": "eng",
    "original_language_code": null,
    "page_count": 336,
    "duration_seconds": null,
    "publication_date_first": "2010-01-01",
    "publication_date_latest": "2010-01-01",
    "cover_url": null,
    "editions": [],
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    "created_at": "2025-09-19T13:35:10+00:00",
    "updated_at": "2025-10-31T00:31:49+00:00",
    "publisher": {
        "id": 5452,
        "slug": "dalkey-archive-press",
        "name": "Dalkey Archive Press",
        "created_at": "2025-09-19T13:22:17+00:00",
        "updated_at": "2025-09-19T14:41:52+00:00"
    },
    "contributors": [
        {
            "id": 234854,
            "slug": "michal-ajvaz-3",
            "key_names": "Ajvaz",
            "names_before_key": "Michal",
            "prefix_to_key": null,
            "contributor_role": "A01",
            "readable_contributor_role": "Author"
        }
    ],
    "genres": [],
    "subjects": [],
    "campaigns": []
}