A City Made of Words

Paul Park is one of modern fiction’s major innovators. With characters truly alien and disturbingly normal, his work explores the shifting interface between traditional narrative and luminous dream, all in the service of a deeper humanism. “Climate Change,” original to this volume, is an intimate and erotic take on a global environmental crisis. “A Resistance to Theory” chronicles the passionate (and bloody) competition between the armed adherents of postmodern literary schools. “A Conversation with the Author” gives readers a harrowing look behind the curtains of an MFA program. In “A Brief History of SF” a fan encounters the ruined man who first glimpsed the ruined cities of Mars. “Creative Nonfiction” showcases a professor’s eager collaboration with a student intent on wrecking his career. The only nonfiction piece, “A Homily for Good Friday,” was delivered to a stunned congregation at a New England church. Plus: a bibliography and a candid Outspoken Interview with one of today's most accomplished and least conventional authors.

Paul Park climaxed his “wanderjahr” in Asia and the Middle East with his Sugar Rain Trilogy, which established him immediately as a writer to watch. His fascinated readers have since followed him into Christian theology, the anatomy of colonialism, and the limits and possibilities of metafictonal narrative. He lives in western Massachusetts and currently teaches at Williams College.