After securing a teaching job at a foreign university on “the thinnest set of credentials,” a young man sets off for life in Varrenia, an impoverished eastern kingdom still emerging from the shadow of a decades-long dictatorship. Years later, living in the decadent capital of Garamdal, our protagonist watches a war unfold in the republic’s restive eastern provinces and reflects on what he has gained — and lost — in a life of travel.

## About the author

In my late twenties, I did a short stint as a grad student in mathematical logic at the University of Amsterdam, where I learned that I am not smart enough to be a mathematician. After dropping out of grad school, I ended up staying in Europe for five years. This novel, greatly influenced by that experience, is my love letter to Europe and to that time.

I am also very proud to be able say that I grew up in Houston — I actually come from the same neighborhood as Lizzo, Mo Amer, and Tila Tequila, cultural luminaries all.

## Previous publications

- "In the East" , in Your Impossible Voice , November 2023

- “A Contested Island” , in Eclectica Magazine , Volume 27 Issue 1, January 2023

- “The High Castle” , in The Missouri Review , April 2022

## Influences

Some readers of my work have remarked that it shares an affinity with the following writers and books. In some cases, these figures represent inspirations that I have leaned into, in others, the similarities (of theme, style, subject matter) are more coincidental:

- In Patagonia, Bruce Chatwin
- Waiting for the Barbarians, J.M. Coetzee
- Balkan Ghosts, Robert Kaplan
- A Bend in the River, V.S. Naipaul
- Paul Bowles
- Milan Kundera