Cutting across borders of history and genre, THE MAN WHO GOT STUCK WITH A SCOWL is an astounding novel about the search for a lost novella by the elusive Pavel Klemczek, a legendary Czech modernist said to have influenced Franz Kafka. The protagonist Uri Katz follows Klemczek’s trail past the edge of heartbreak and madness, where contemporary national narratives and technological malaise are embodied in a scowl that won’t go away.

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Germany: Hoffmann und Campe

Reviews:

“A metaphysical metafictional saga that, disguised as an investigation into a literary mystery, illuminates with fearless intelligence and great passion the drifting apart of the past into contradictory stories. Uri Katz is the writer Borges dreamed of – a Borges writing in Hebrew, the Bolaño of the Jews.” —Pulitzer-prize winning author Joshua Cohen

“One of the most incredible books I have ever read.” —Booker-prize winning translator Jessica Cohen

“Finally, another novel from Israel that turns literature on its head. Bravo, Uri Katz!” —German writer and columnist Maxim Biller

“The term ‘novel’ is not enough for this book. I propose a new genre, namely ‘joyride’. This story is nothing else – a delicious, funny, crazy Jewish and at the same time completely secular journey through the modern world and its previous century.” —German author Dana Vowinckel

“Spectacular!” —Swedish writer Johanna Adorján

“Not a single dull moment. Sometimes it is exhausting, sometimes startlingly brilliant. It is an intellectual exercise with overly entangled layers upon layers, but it does not suffer from the alienation that usually characterizes such literary ideas. There is no point in quoting from the novel, because no single quotation can illustrate the poetics of this book: there is far more than one. It was clearly written with the delight of megalomania - and there is no greater delight. Readers who dare to engage with this extraordinary book will be rewarded.” —Ha’aretz