MONTAG PRESS
COLLECTIVE
B O O K S W O R T H B U R N I N G
Books by Soramimi Hanarejima
Visits to the Confabulatorium
"Hanarejima's arsenal of emotions give the Confabulatorium an extra texture that is truly rare in literature these days. Nothing copycat here; no imitation; a defiant style that bucks the trend. This book has made me ecstatic for his emergence in a culture in dire need of such an authentic, fun, articulate and pretenseless voice."
- Zachary Amendt, author of STAY and Open Concept, and the editor of FRESH
"Inventive stories from a new talent to watch. Some of the shortest stories here have the most impact. This is a collection with a distinctive voice, and Soramimi Hanarejima is a writer to add to your list. An impressive effort."
- Matthew Salesses, author of The Hundred-Year Flood
"In this unique and charming debut, Hanarejima weaves vignettes of 'another world, intermingled with our own', where ideas come in standard sizes, and mental models are tangible... A visit to the confabulatorium is refreshing, rewarding - and recommended!"
— Tasneem Zehra Husain, author of Only The Longest Threads
"From the absence of curiosity in “Mismanagement of Restlessness” to the diagnosis of “lazy mind’s eye” in “Anisotropy,” the reality unreality that exists in each story captures you, turns you around and then sets you down again, in the same place but different somehow. The stories in Visits to the Confabulatorium linger long after the last line is read, teasing you to return and travel along those lines again."
- Nancy Christie, author of Traveling Left of Center and Other Stories
"Soramimi Hanarejima’s Visits to the Confabulatorium is undeniably humorous and philosophical and exuberantly contemplative."
- Eleanor Levine, author of Waitress at the Red Moon Pizzeri
Stolen intuition.
The sugar rush of sweet compliments. Traps set to capture the imagination. The frantic search for errant curiosity. Prescription glasses for lazy mind’s eye. These things and more shape the lives of the characters inhabiting the fanciful stories in Visits to the Confabulatorium. With emotional honesty rendered in surreal circumstances, this collection invites readers into the quietly tangled terrain of interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships—a realm blending inner life with worldly consequences—where the reader can be simultaneously visitor and citizen.
Frenemies by Destiny
Here, words and feelings come together in intimate encounters and through their implausible yet inevitable affairs alter each other—and in turn the reader. Written by the author of the acclaimed Visits to the Confabulatorium, this imaginative collection of short stories gleams with linguistic and psychological possibility.
In these pages, the reader will find admiration and affection turning an apartment into a dormitory for the past selves forsaken by a friend. Panic launching a frantic search for lost concentration. Anxiety spurring on a plea to abandon plans for withdrawing from society by way of invisibility. Frustration at getting too much sympathy when the 9th bundle of it shows up. Annoyance at a long-overdue turn to use the taste in music shared with a friend. Disgust when swallowing someone else’s pride.
In Frenemies by Destiny, unusual situations combine with familiar feelings, and friends find themselves in new territory where intimacy, vulnerability, uncertainty and even hostility lie in close proximity. Here, readers are invited to find out if the compass of intuition leads characters towards new emotional vistas or utterly astray, adrift in convolutions of language.
“I highly recommend Frenemies by Destiny to those who like fresh and intriguing brief vignettes which are complete in their own right while also contributing to the integrated tone and theme of the entire work. I enjoyed Soramimi’s inspection of humanity and society in brilliantly entertaining poetic prose.”—Debra Leea Glasheen, author of Backbiters
