XYZT

by Kristen Alvanson

Overview

Genre-defying fiction that accelerates "cross-cultural dialogue" into a kaleidoscopic rush of sensory estrangements, fairy tales, and alien encounters.

"There's really no difference between us and them, so we're told…."

Based on the author's experiences of living as an American in Iran, Kristen Alvanson's XYZT is a wildly imaginative dramatization of the idea of a "dialogue of civilizations" and its potentially outlandish ramifications.

As part of an advanced technological test program, volunteers are shuttled back and forth between the US and Iran, hidden from the watchful eyes of immigration police and state bureaucracies. Each is given a single opportunity to be received by a local host and to have a brief authentic experience of what it means to live as “them” before being transported back home.

But far from heralding the bliss of mutual recognition, the experiment unleashes a series of displacements so disorienting that the fabric of reality begins to fray. Ordinary people become entangled in extraordinary situations, and everyday life bleeds into mythological encounters, alternate universes and dark psychedelic journeys in alien lands where the real and the imaginary are indistinguishable.

A treasury of tales told from multiple perspectives and in a multiplicity of styles, XYZT is an audacious cross-genre experiment, a firsthand memoir of what it means to see what "they" see, and a science-fictional, nonstandard engagement with anthropology in which cross-cultural encounters take on all the unpredictable features of a contemporary fairy tale.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781916405240
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	07/02/2019
Series:	Urbanomic / K-Pulp , #2
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	328
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Kristen Alvanson is an American artist and writer. Her essays and artworks have been published in journals and anthologies worldwide, and she has participated in group and solo shows in New York, Tehran, Shiraz, London, Istanbul, Berlin, Vienna, Singapore, Kessel-Lo, Zürich, and Vilnius.

Table of Contents

Ghamsar: Rose Essence 7

Cherokee: A Ride 15

Dasht-e Lut: Fire Girl 17

Shiraz: Feast 21

Asheville: Oz 27

Yazd: Power Out 29

Perth Amboy: Fresh Kills 45

Mashhad: Cooking Americans 51

Old Greenwich: Pirate or Princess 63

Tehran: Enghelab Street 77

15238: On the Manner of Sawing 81

Bavanat: Winter Wind Oh My Dying Sister 93

Ocean Drive: Vice City 105

Nomadic Fabric (Post-Dashtanistan) 107

NYC: El Sombrero 113

Esfahan: Notes to Self 125

Arkham: A Rat in the Rafters 131

Tabriz: Bedtime Story 145

Los Angeles: Lolita 153

Denver: Central Library 161

The District: Nine West 163

Mount St. Helens: Leiurus-Gigantopithecus 169

St. Louis: Chinese Takeaway 189

Kerman: Something in the Water 191

Cerrillos: Peacock Angel 203

The Boarlette of Yasooj 211

Virginia: Ham 217

Sistan-Baluchestan: Bugsam Dasies 221

Nebraska: Aksarben 41°15'0"N, 96°0'0"W 247

The Lulubi 251

Chicago: Insider Outsider (The Box of Robbers) 263

The Yazidi Mountains 273

Madison: Easter Sunday 277

Abadan: The Carpet Antechamber 281

Naqsh-e Jahan: Payten 301

Editorial Reviews

a very provocative premise… makes for fascinating reading.—New Scientist—

From the Publisher