Again Behold the Stars

Author: Josephy, Alex

Literature & literary studies

Published on 15 February 2023 by Cinnamon Press in the United Kingdom.

Paperback | 36 pages
147 x 210 x 5 | 62g

It's winter, 1553. A small Italian hill town is under siege...

In this narrative of uncommon endurance Alex Josephy inhabits place and people with lively precision. Told in the voices of women, including a chorus, a nearby mountain and the fortress herself, the uniting voice of the pamphlet is a 'girl', through whose eyes we see the minute details of life under immense stress and feel the nuances of loss, hunger and uncertainty. Again Behold the Stars is an intense immersion into a lockdown that challenges all the senses, one utterly different from the modern experience of lockdown during the Covid pandemic, yet also hauntingly resonant with it. Most vitally, the empathy evoked reaches us across almost five centuries, making us care in the present.