‘Homunculus’ is a collection of sixteen adult fairy tales in which Prokopiev combines the erotic, tragic, absurd, and humorous. The tales in Homunculus challenge our perceptions of reality. They transcend the sugar-sweet endings we normally associate with fairy tales while retaining elements of the magical and unexpected.
“[Prokopiev] is a teasing, telling interlocutor who likes to play the naïve; the brilliant Fool who is a figure as recognizable from our traditions as from his own. These shape-shifting stories remain adamantly, radically open for us to interpret. They challenge us to accept, even to embrace, our own confusion: implying, perhaps, that life itself is as confusing as any fable. To read them is to glimpse the wildness at the heart of Europe.” Fiona Sampson, Poet.
The reader of ‘Homunculus’ is drawn through the familiar and the unknown: guided through subverted fairytales known to most Europeans such as Tom Thumb and Snow White, others that have their roots in Macedonian folklore, and tales straight from the head of Prokopiev himself. Humorous, skilful and unexpected, each story contains at its very core a love of life.
Homunculus is translated from the Macedonian by Will Firth and published by Istros Books on 1 June 2015.