Aye Aye - Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky

BBC Radio 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK
FORWARD PRIZE 2019 SHORTLIST
POETRY BOOK SOCIETY CHOICE 2019

The long-awaited new collection from Ilya Kaminsky: a remarkable parable in poems which asks us, what is silence?

Deaf Republic opens in a time of political unrest in an occupied territory. It is uncertain where we are or when, in what country or during what conflict, but we come to recognise that these events are also happening here, right now. This astonishing parable in poems unfolds episodically like a play, its powerful narrative provoked by a tragic opening scene: when soldiers breaking up a protest kill a deaf boy, the gunshot becomes the last thing the citizens hear - in that moment, all have gone deaf. Inside this silence, their dissent becomes coordinated by sign language. The story then follows the private lives of townspeople encircled by public violence: a newly married couple, Alfonso and Sonya, expecting their child; the daring Momma Galya, instigating the insurgency from her puppet theatre; and Galya's puppeteers, covertly teaching signs by day and by night heroically luring soldiers one by one to their deaths behind the curtain. At once a love story, an elegy, and an urgent plea, Deaf Republic confronts our time's vicious atrocities and our collective silence in the face of them.

Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odessa, former Soviet Union in 1977, and arrived in the United States in 1993, when his family was granted asylum by the American government. He is the author of Deaf Republic (Graywolf Press, 2019), Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press, 2004). He has also co-edited many anthologies and co-translated a number of poetry collections. He is the recipient of Guggenheim Fellowship, Lannan Fellowship, NEA Fellowship, Whiting Writer's Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Metcalf Award, the Dorset Prize, the Ruth Lilly Fellowship given annually by Poetry magazine. His work appears in such publications as The New Yorker, New Republic, McSweeney's, and The New York Times. He lives in Atlanta.