Jigs & Tales Of Bawdry
Jigs & Tales of Bawdry, Mark Will’s first collection of short fiction, is an irreverent commentary on contemporary American life, from the Reagan era to the post-9/11 present. Alternating third- and first-person narratives offer skewed perspectives on work, divorce, religion, politics, and education, with a salutary admixture of sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll. Nostalgic, sarcastic, crude, and occasionally transgressive, the thirteen stories included herein will provoke a variety of reactions.
Message
Although generally considered one of Portugal's greatest poets, Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa (1888-1935) published but one book in Portuguese in his lifetime. That book, Message (Portuguese Mensagem), the esoteric epic at which he labored sporadically for more than 20 years before finally publishing it in the year prior to his death, is undoubtedly essential to an understanding of Pessoa's poetic vision, yet it remains, at least in the English-speaking world, relatively unknown and unread. Mark Will, author of the epic poem Of Letters and a Man: A, now offers to the public a new unabridged translation of Pessoa's forgotten modernist classic, in order to reintroduce listeners to a work which is as central to the Pessoan corpus as is the more celebrated, posthumously published Book of Disquiet.
Flannsday
Flannsday is the first novelette in the Erinesque series by Mark Will & G.J. Villa. Here we meet Martin Wells and J.G. Vara on day one of their quixotic "literary wank" across Ireland.
June 14, 2013. Wells & Vara have arrived in Dublin from opposite sides of the globe to celebrate James Joyce, their “original literary superhero,” during the annual Bloomsday festivities. But Bloomsday is still two days away, and in the meantime Wells has insisted that Irish satirist Flann O’Brien, one of the founders of Bloomsday, be honored with a day of his own.
Persians
Aeschylus’ historical tragedy Persians, with its dire warnings against the hubris of imperialist overreach, is as relevant today as it was when first presented to an Athenian audience in 472 BC. This new edition of the classic drama features a literal translation by Mark Will (translator of Fernando Pessoa’s Message) which reconstructs in contemporary English verse the epic cadences of the original Greek.
White Monkey
A mischievous figure “of pithecanthropic aspect” is asked a simple question by a representative of the shadowy organization known as “the Committee.” His answer—or his refusal to answer—causes tensions to escalate beyond the point of no return. Whether read as a screenplay, a closet drama, or a dystopian allegory in the manner of Beckett and Pinter, White Monkey depicts the universal struggle between the defiant individual and the corrupt collective.
Of Letters and a Man: A
Of Letters and a Man: A is the first canto of a projected 26-canto epic. It begins with the appearance of the Poet/Anti-Poet, who invokes Cadmus the Phoenician, father of letters and literature, and announces his intention to narrate the life of a man he calls the Hero/Zero. Following this prologue, the Hero/Zero, who also identifies with Cadmus, declares that he will narrate his own life in a work he calls I Am the Book I Write. Conceived on the grand scale of Homer, Vergil, Dante, and Milton, informed by the idiosyncrasies of Proust, Joyce, Beckett, and Borges, Of Letters and a Man: A marks a revival of the epic tradition.
Postcards from the Nordics
Postcards from the Nordics is Mark Will’s most unique literary production to date. Inspired by Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Will’s book is both a travelogue and an epistolary novel addressed to “random recipients, living and dead, real and fictional, famous and less well-known.”