2009 BOOK AWARDS www.indieexcellence.com
Multicultural Fiction Finalist
http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.aspx?bookid=35826
Shalom Tower Syndrome was also a Finalist in the "Fiction & Literature" category at
The National Best Books 2007 Awards. It was also released in 2008 in Italian by Edizioni Fabio Croce
The novel is set in Israel. Alexis, who grew up in Rwanda-Burundi, is the son of an Italian Jew and a beautiful mulatto woman. As a young adult, he now queries the complexity of his roots: African-European and Judeo-Christian (his mother was raised a Catholic). The author guides the reader through a progression of exciting and complicated episodes involving Alexis. With his American wife he will vacation in Israel, and that stay will be a turning point in his life. The past catches up with him, exploding with the images of one man's life kaleidoscope: the memories of his African years, colliding with the more recent images of Milan, the smells, the colors and the primeval beauty of the black continent, mingling with those of Italy, as well as with the violent feelings Israel stirs in him. In that dense and haunting atmosphere he will meet young Israelis, a Palestinian and a German professor, the nephew of a Nazi soldier who died during WWII. Will Alexis finally reconcile himself with the conflicting parts of his identity? Will he feel more African or more European; more Catholic or more Jewish; or will his new environment help him find peace within himself, in spite of the country’s current dangers? The ‘mystery’ will unravel in the last chapter of this largely autobiographical novel. ‘There is a type of novel whose aim, as Jonathan Swift wrote of his intention behind Gulliver's Travels, is to “vex the world rather than divert it.” If it's a good and true novel then it will inevitably also serve both as a vexatious testament and a diverting read. Such is Albert Russo's Shalom Tower Syndrome.
Shalom Tower Syndrome is very much a biography of the soul, and as much as that of any latter-day Harry Haller, and Russo seems to have dredged in its pages the depths of his own being in order to have written it.’
David Alexander
.
Excerpt from James Baldwin's letter to the author, penned the year of his death: “I like your work very much indeed. It has a very gentle surface and a savage under-tow. You're a dangerous man.”
See the author's own French version entitled LA TOUR SHALOM, published by Editions Hors Commerce in 2005 . SHALOM TOWER SYNDROME was also published in Italian in 2008 by Libreria Edizioni Croce
Albert RUSSO
Sang mêlé
Le grand roman
d'Albert Russo
Editions France Loisirs
Coniglio Editore - Italiano
Quelques unes de mes photos exposées au
Musée de l'Elysée à Lausanne /
Some of my photos exhibited at the
Museum of Photography in Lausanne, Switzerland
The Benevolent American in the Heart of Darkness:
A trilogy of Albert Russo’s
award-winning
African novels set in
the former Belgian Congo
and Rwanda-Urundi
http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.aspx?bookid=26766
XLibris - English
- Lettre de James Balwin à Albert Russo à propos de 'Sang Mêlé ':
“... J’aime votre écriture, car dans un style policé vous exprimez des sentiments violents, faisant éclater des vérités terrifiantes.”
- Voici ce que le grand écrivain contemporain, Edmund White, l'auteur de la magistrale biographie de Jean Genet et de romans à succès, dit de SANG MELE :
.
"Albert Russo a su recréer, à travers les joies et les angoisses d'un jeune métis congolais, les tensions de la vie moderne, qu'il s'agisse des relations entre noirs et blancs, entre le Tiers monde et nos sociétés technologiquement avancées, ou de la question toujours épineuse de l'homosexualité ... SANG MELE est un roman que l'on ne lache pas, tel quel, il est envoûtant."
The Norwegian Public Schools have chosen Albert Russo's poem LOST IDENTITY for their students' (close to 2,000) final English examinations, before they can enter university.
City of lovers / of wonder
Parie la Grosse Pomme
Indie excellence finalist
New York at heart
New York au coeur
Indie excellence finalist
Body glorious / Corps à corps
Books And Authors 2008 Winner
Indie excellence finalist
Photolaureate 2009
Ville d’Avray, France
L'amant de mon père,
journal romain
Cercle poche
http://www.bibliopoche.com/livre/L-amant-de-mon-pere/194507.html
Bruxelles au galop
Brussels Ride
All photos and English book covers are by /
Toutes les photos et couvertures de livres en anglais sont de /
Albert Russo
NEWS - ALBERT RUSSO - NOUVEAUTES
Chercheurs et étudiants en littérature peuvent désormais
consulter le Fonds littéraire Albert Russo:
Researchers and students of literature may now
access the Albert Russo Literary Archives
in Brussels, Belgium, the capital of the European Union:
ARCHIVES & MUSÉE DE LA LITTÉRATURE
Bibliothèque Royale Albert Ier
Boulevard de l'Empereur 4
1000 Bruxelles - Belgique
search / rechercher: Auteur Albert Russo
http://217.19.236.211/site/index.html
http://217.19.236.211/plumefx/public/plume.asp
NEWS - NOUVEAUTES
OUT FOR THE 2010 WORLD SOCCER EVENTS IN SOUTH AFRICA
Albert Russo’s hilarious new Zapinette sequel
ZULU ZAPY WINS THE RAINBOW NATION
co-published by Poets Printery (South Africa) and Cyberwit.net (India)
Before they left Paris, clicking on Facenicked, Linkadingdong, Teenyweeny and meyou indatub, Unky Berky had learnt that he had three distant cousins in South Africa, whose Huguenot forebears had fled France during the religious wars. Afrer a brief exchange of tectronic messages, they all wished to meet their Camembert relatives so as to catch up on the Révolution Française that beheaded poor Louis XVI and his Marie-Toilette, on why the Concorde had become a museum bird, on whether the French still ate froggies’ legs, on the price of the baguette, and so fork and to hell and gone.
There was Kif, who lived with his family, on a big farmstead in the boorish State of Orange, Tuk, a hairdresser who worked in a posh Durban beauty parlor, and Suzy, an old spinster, who acted as a nurse in a poor Malay neighborhood of Cape Town - the poor lassie had been raped several times on her way to the hospital, but was never killed, thank Goddess Holy Shiva, for she seemed to be a tough cookie, tho a bit smashed downstairs. And here, Zapy and her uncle would have to assist her in helping battered wives recover from their wounds and giving them hope again ... in court!
That was then what our ‘fortunate’ winners would discover in the Rainbow Nation. Bon voyage! so say the Frogs, and bon voyage to all of you, readers, dwellers of this here sorry planet of ours, full of carbuncles: all these ills have been caused, to a great extent, by you, gas guzzlers, gobblers of junk food, ozone destroyers - hey, hey, don’t look at me, it’s Zapy talking here!”
"Boundaries of Exile / Conditions of Hope" has placed as a FINALIST in the "Miscellaneous" category.
BOUNDARIES OF EXILE / CONDITIONS OF HOPE
by Albert Russo and Martin Tucker
Stories - Poems - Essays
Confrontation Press (Long Island University)
162 pages - ISBN 978-0-913057-56-8
orders : Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, or preferably, directly through:
Confrontation Press, English Dept,
C.W.Post of Long Island University
Brookville, NY 11548 - USA
email: martin.tucker@liu.edu - tel 516-299-2720
URL: www.confrontationmagazine.org
NOUVEAU ROMAN d’Albert Russo
EXILS AFRICAINS ... et il y eut David-Kanza
Ginkgo éditeur, Paris (diffusion CDE-Sodis)
ENGLISH
THE BLACK ANCESTOR a novel by Albert Russo
Imago Press - 218 pages - softcover: $ 15 or GBP 11.99
ISBN-13: 978-1-935437-05-5 (hardcover) - $ 22; GBP 15.99 (online orders only)
ISBN-10: 1-935437-05-4 (hardcover)
ISBN-13: 978-1-935437-03-1 (pbk.) - $ 15; GPB 11.99
ISBN-10: 1-935437-03-8 (pbk.)
1. Americans—Africa—Fiction. 2. Racially mixed children. 3. Identity
(Psychology) 4. Congo (Democratic Republic)
Orders: Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, etc, or directly through:
Imago Press
3710 East Edison
Tucson AZ 85716 - USA
email: ljoiner@dakotacom.net
tel. 520-327-0540
Featured Photographer Chinese children
Photography Vibes - Best of edition 2009
Photolaureates.org
included in the new book
CHINA FOREVER / LA CHINE ETERNELLE
http://www.blurb.com/books/1469832
ANIMAL KINSHIP
NOS COUSINS LES ANIMAUX
Photos: Albert Russo
http://www.blurb.com/books/1447387
Mermaids of the Baltic Sea
Saint Petersburg, Talinn, Helsinki, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Bergen, Oslo
winner of the 2011 National Indie Excellence awards
in General Photography
Albert Russo
Blurb, Inc. http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1495943
http://www.blurb.com/books/1507889
http://www.blurb.com/books/1501950
http://www.blurb.com/books/1495896
GARDEN DELIGHTS
JARDINS DELICIEUX
Photos: Albert Russo
http://www.blurb.com/books/1455469
VISIONS OF VENICE
VENISE D’ORS ET DE MASQUES
Photos: Albert Russo
http://www.blurb.com/books/1436882
Shalom Tower Syndrome
ISBN
Hardcover 978-1-4257-7726-5
ISBN Softcover 978-1-4257-7703-6
To order this book: Website: www.xlibris.com
Email: Orders@Xlibris.com
Fax:610-915-0294
Telephone: 1.888.795.4274 x 276 or 215.923.4686
Postal mail: Xlibris Corporation, 2 International Plaza, suite 340 - Philadelphia, PA 19113 USA or go directly to Albert Russo’s books:
http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/search_results.asp?page=2&title=&author=albert%20russo%20&long_desc=&isbn=&subcat
The novel is set in Israel. Alexis, who grew up in Rwanda-Urundi, is the son of an Italian Jew and a beautiful mulatto woman. As a young adult, he now queries (Albert: do you really mean “ponders over”? To query is usually an expression of doubt.) the complexity of his roots: African-European and Judeo-Christian (his mother was raised a Catholic). The author guides the reader through a progression of exciting and complicated episodes involving Alexis. With his American wife he will vacation in Israel, and that stay will be a turning point in his life. The past catches up with him, exploding with the images of one man's life kaleidoscope: the memories of his African years, colliding with the more recent images of Milan, the smells, the colors and the primeval beauty of the black continent, mingling with those of Italy, as well as with the violent feelings Israel stirs in him. In that dense and haunting atmosphere he will meet young Israelis, a Palestinian and a German professor, the nephew of a Nazi soldier who died during WWII. Will Alexis finally reconcile himself with the conflicting parts of his identity? Will he feel more African or more European; more Catholic or more Jewish; or will his new environment help him find peace within himself, in spite of the country’s current dangers? The ‘mystery’ will unravel in the last chapter of this largely autobiographical novel. ‘There is a type of novel whose aim, as Jonathan Swift wrote of his intention behind Gulliver's Travels, is to “vex the world rather than divert it.” If it's a good and true novel then it will inevitably also serve both as a vexatious testament and a diverting read. Such is Albert Russo's Shalom Tower Syndrome. Shalom Tower Syndrome shares attributes with Eric Ambler's tales of “innocents abroad,” but it also shares a great deal with those 19th and early 20th century authors of the roman à clef, “romances with a key,” especially those penetratingly insightful books and stories written by the Swiss novelist Hermann Hesse that Hesse dubbed Seelenbiographie or “biographies of the soul.” Shalom Tower Syndrome is very much a biography of the soul, and as much as that of any latter-day Harry Haller, and Russo seems to have dredged in its pages the depths of his own being in order to have written it.’
David Alexander
.
Excerpt from James Baldwin's letter to the author, penned the year of his death: “I like your work very much indeed. It has a very gentle surface and a savage under-tow. You're a dangerous man.
.
.
” See the author's own French version entitled LA TOUR SHALOM, published by Editions Hors Commerce in 2005 .
Existe en version française : Voir détail Onglet Navigateur en haut à gauche : « BOOKS I / LIVRES I » "La Tour Shalom »
ITALIANO
Versione italiana della "Shalom Tower Syndrome" romanica : Vedere tabuli navigatore in cima, sulla sinistra « LIBRI IN ITALIANO »
FRANCAIS
Sang Mêlé ou ton fils Léopold
roman d'Albert Russo Ginkgo éditions, Paris, 2007
(diffusion/distribution CDE/Sodis - groupe Gallimard).
.
“Au Congo belge, dans les années 50, Léo est adopté par Harry Wilson, américain en mal de paternité. Celui-ci et sa servante, Mama Malkia, opulente africaine au coeur d’or, comblent Léo d’affection. Bientôt, il va à l’école dans un établissement pour Européens. Le jeune métis, en proie aux moqueries de ses camarades blancs, se sent exclus, rejeté. Ni tout à fait blanc, ni tout à fait noir. Il se noue d’amitié avec Ishaya, petit juif, qui devient son plus grand complice. Puis, il fait l’apprentissage de la vie. Entraîné par un copain plus âgé dans une maison close, il fait une désastreuse initiation amoureuse. Il apprend, lors d’une scène violente, l’homosexualité de son père adoptif. Ce beau roman, dominé par Léo, jeune métis, traite en profondeur de la difficulté à vivre sa différence. Rare témoignage sur l’époque coloniale, Albert Russo décrit dans un style soutenu, des personnages sincères, des sentiments intenses. Un livre poignant, réaliste et fort. Une vraie réussite.”
Lettre de James Balwin à Albert Russo à propos de 'Sang Mêlé ':
“... J’aime votre écriture, car dans un style policé vous exprimez des sentiments violents, faisant éclater des vérités terrifiantes.”
- Voici ce que le grand écrivain contemporain, Edmund White, l'auteur de la magistrale biographie de Jean Genet et de romans à succès, dit de SANG MELE:
"Albert Russo a su recréer, à travers les joies et les angoisses d'un jeune métis congolais, les tensions de la vie moderne, qu'il s'agisse des relations entre noirs et blancs, entre le Tiers monde et nos sociétés technologiquement avancées, ou de la question toujours épineuse de l'homosexualité ... SANG MELE est un roman que l'on ne lache pas, tel quel, il est envoûtant."
Coniglio Editore - Italiano Editions France Loisirs - Français
ITALIANO
Versione italiana della "Sang mêlé" romanica : Vedere tabuli navigatore in cima, sulla sinistra « LIBRI IN ITALIANO » - “Sangue misto”
ENGLISH
Gaytude : a poetic journey around the world
.
Bilingual poetry, written, translated and adapted
by Albert Russo and Adam Donaldson Powell ;
with photography by Albert Russo.
.
Published by Xlibris Corporation - www.Xlibris.com
Copyright © 2009 by Albert Russo and Adam Donaldson Powell.
Most of Albert Russo’s poems in French first appeared in Tour du monde de la poésie gay, Editions Hors Commerce, Paris, 2005.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008907964
ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4363-6396-9 ISBN: Softcover 978-1-4363-6395-2
To order this book, contact: phone: (US) 1-888-795-4274 - email: Orders@Xlibris.com
.
Gaytude is a poetic study of both the universality and the diversity of gay experience ... an experience of confluence whereby individual love, lust and identity are constantly in tandem and conflict with collective mores, customs, codes and trends. In a sense, we are all gay ... inasmuch as we all seek the right to be different, as well as to be the same. For some, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is recognition and acceptance ; and for others it is perhaps the excitement of covert intimacy and adventure. This book is dedicated to all gays, including those who flaunt their sexual orientation freely and those who still remain secretive or inactive due to still ongoing risks of abuse, harassment and execution.
One day, men all over the world will be able to proudly quote from Catullus 16 - this time with pride and loving spirit: “Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo” .
to ADRIAN DUMARAIS
born in 1961 in Kimberly, South Africa
by Albert Russo
CHANGE OF REGIME
In this land where diamonds
were once extracted with blood,
the rainbow revolution
has swept away apartheid.
My father, a true-to-God Afrikaner,
oh so ferocious in his convictions,
was still not able to understand why
the splendid race to which he belongs,
that of the former masters,
for which his ancestors fought so hard,
became a minority in this country.
He also believed he could cure me
of that shameful "weakness" of character which,
“dishonors” the stronger sex, and
today he looks at me with eyes filled with hatred :
“I gave you everything,“ he then exclaims,
“and you betrayed me, not once, but three times.
You approve of this government of niggers,
then too, you dare to strut along with this Singh,
this Indian who is ten years older than you -
but in what muck do we live, pray tell me ?“
yet, every day which passes, my love for Singh
becomes stronger,
and now I feel free to say, loud and clear,
here is my lover, a gesture which
a few years ago would have sent us both to prison,
and with the days that pass
my father moves just a little closer to the hell
he has been threatening me with
FOR THE BOYS WITH AIDS
by Adam Donaldson Powell
To friends who don’t know
And strangers who do not care,
Soldiers of love worship
Tinsel-town sex goddesses
With all their strength.
They thrive outwardly on
The rantings of Madonna and
Privately soothe their pain
And hopelessness with sombre
Strains by Leonard Cohen.
Their greatest ambition is
To shake the shackles of shame
Which imprison and threaten
Them with the most undignified
Fate of all : namelessness.
To some there is no irony in death,
But others are enraged at the
Uncanny plight of these handsome
Living dead, whose only crime was
Need for love and recognition.
to JAVIER DEBRIMA
born in 1972 in Montevideo, Uruguay
by Albert Russo
NO TRESPASSING
he’s a young boy, a very young boy
much too young, for my own good
he’s one of my students, you see
excellent background, perfect manners
always impeccably attired
as if dressed for Sunday mass
he drinks my words
when I speak of Columbus
he remains agape
when I mention Chapultepec
he can’t take his eyes off my lips
when I read aloud pages from Che Guevara
and he stares at me with expectation
as I take a second breath
he drives me crazy
with that angelic mien of his
that mouth which opens like a budding flower
those eyes at once so soft and so riveting
he sends shockwaves through my spine
the way he walks, so nonchalantly
the way he stretches his limbs
like a young lion cub
but, oh, look at his neck
his adam’s apple, bobbing
like a quail’s egg ready to hatch
the image of his face tortures me at night
for he has become my obsession
and I’m nuts about him
but how I despise myself
for being so helpless
there’s his age, you see
and there’s my career, too
then there’s that awesome responsibility
towards my class
towards society
and I am highly respected by my peers
yet, my attraction to him is gravitational
one of these days,
I shall fall off the cliff
MY STRANGER ... SO SWEET
by Adam Donaldson Powell
So sweet
Are your suggested promises.
My stranger.
My unobtainable
Moment of passion.
You coax me ;
You cast me aside.
We can only have each other
In our leap-frog dreams :
Both out-of-sync and yet
Totally – oh so totally ...
In syncopation.
The relentless fantasy is more
Than the sum of reality’s
Individual parts.
I see you everywhere ;
In the gait of strangers ...
In my memories.
Beginning from the
Waist down ...
Easing toward the toes
And then quickly
Darting upwards
To a fleeting and
Indiscriminate
Photographic flash
Of your insignificant face.
My stranger.
My passion.
My stranger ...
So sweet.
FRANCAIS
Gaytude : tour du monde poétique
.
Poésie bilingue, écrite, traduite et adaptée par Albert Russo et Adam Donaldson Powell ;
avec photographies d’Albert Russo.
.
Published by Xlibris Corporation - www.Xlibris.com
Copyright © 2009 by Albert Russo and Adam Donaldson Powell.
Most of Albert Russo’s poems in French first appeared in Tour du monde de la poésie gay, Editions Hors Commerce, Paris, 2005.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008907964
ISBN: Hardcover 978-1-4363-6396-9 ISBN: Softcover 978-1-4363-6395-2
To order this book, contact: phone: (US) 1-888-795-4274 - email: Orders@Xlibris.com
.
INTRODUCTION
La première étude de l'homme qui veut être poète est sa propre connaissance, entière. Il cherche son âme, il l'inspecte, il la tente, l'apprend. Dès qu'il la sait, il la doit cultiver. Je dis qu'il faut être voyant, se faire voyant. Le poète se fait voyant par un long, immense et raisonné dérèglement de tous les sens. Toutes les formes d'amour, de souffrance, de folie ; il cherche lui-même, il épuise en lui tous les poisons, pour n'en garder que les quintessences. Ineffable torture où il a besoin de toute la foi, de toute la force surhumaine, où il devient entre tous le grand malade, le grand criminel, le grand maudit, et le suprême Savant ! Car il arrive à l'inconnu ! ... Donc le poète est vraiment voleur de feu.
- Arthur Rimbaud
Gaytude est une vision poétique, tant de la diversité, que de l’universalité de l’expérience gay ... elle est la confluence dans laquelle l’amour individuel, le désir et l’identité, sont à la fois, constamment en tandem et en conflit avec les moeurs, les coutumes, les codes de conduite et les tendances de la société. D’une certaine manière, nous sommes tous gay ... dans la mesure où nous voulons tous jouïr du droit d’être différent, et en même temps, de rester ce que nous sommes essentiellement. Pour certains, la plus belle chose qui soit au monde est la reconnaissance et l’acceptation, pour d’autres, c’est l’aventure qui prime, l’excitation d’une intimité secrète. Ce livre est dédié à tous les gays de la terre, aussi bien à ceux qui proclament haut et fort leur homosexualité, qu’à ceux qui ne la mettent pas en avant, ou qui la cachent, de peur d’être pointés du doigts, de subir quolibets et agressions, voire pire, de se faire emprisonner, fouetter ou même tuer, dans ces pays, encore si nombreux, aux régimes régressifs, qui les considèrent encore comme des malades ou des criminels. Un jour, les gays du monde entier pourront citer Catulle sans rougir : “Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo” .
à DEVARAJ PATEL
né en 1956 sur l’Ile Maurice
Albert Russo
LISTE DES PRÉPARATIFS
de beaux oeufs tannés
que l’on gobera crus
une courgette de dimension royale
à la peau douce comme la soie
à cuire avec du mouton
et des patates douces
une botte de cresson
très fournie et très serrée
pour la salade de saison
une mangue bien galbée
d’un jaune tendre
que l’on coupera en quartiers
des bananes langue-de-chat
à servir en purée
ou, à défaut, un avocat très mûr
et toi, mon jeune ami
je te placerai sur un plateau en argent
après t’avoir savonné
de fond en comble
et parfumé à l’eau de rose
tu pourras ainsi trôner
parmi ces appétissants
produits de mon jardin,
le plus délectable
de tous les fruits
LAME
Adam Donaldson Powell
adapté de l’anglais par Albert Russo
Notre danse est un rituel ;
Une obsession insensée
Entre deux papillons de nuit
Jouant avec le feu.
Ni chaînes, ni fouet.
Juste une attache ...
Et les douces conséquences
De la lame tranchante d’un sabre.
à MICHIKO YAMITA
née en 1971 à Kyoto, Japon
Albert Russo
LA CONFUSION DES GENRES
je m’habille en garçon
porte costume, cravate
et cheveux courts
au bureau on m’appelle
par mon nom masculin
et personne ne s’est encore
aperçu de la supercherie
car je suis mince, plate
et élancée
le soir, je hante le quartier gay
de la ville nouvelle
et souris de voir combien
les jeunes gens sont attirés par moi
mais au dernier moment
lorsqu’un beau garçon
veut m’emmener chez lui
je trouve un prétexte
je me rends aussi
dans les lieux de débauche
que fréquentent les mâles
dits normaux, les hétéros quoi !
là, je m’amuse follement
certains d’entre eux,
surtout lorsqu’ils sont éméchés,
ne savent plus si je suis
un homme déguisé en femme
ou le contraire
et cette confusion les titille
quant à ma vie privée
elle ne regarde que moi
ANTES DE LA MUERTE DE MI AMOR
Adam Donaldson Powell
Pienso en tí ...
Y muero
Lentamente
En mis sueños.
Pienso en tí ...
Y ahora
Lo único que queda
Es la música,
Unas palabras perdidas
Y ... quizás
Una que otra lágrima
Errante ...
Pienso en tí ...
La lluvia oculta
La arrogante apatía,
El retórico insoportable.
La apología
Sin rostro
De los que piden perdón.
Despierto y descubro
Lágrimas
Que baten
Ventanas con grietas
Y sueños quebrados ...
De súbito ...
No puedo llorar más;
La lluvia ha parado.
Bajo el cielo desnudo
La vieja pintura se descolora.
Y yo pienso aún en tí ...
Hasta olvidar
El silencio que ya existía
Antes de la muerte de mi amor.
ENGLISH
The Benevolent American in the Heart of Darkness
In "The Black Ancestor", the reader will find, as in the two other novels, "Eclipse over Lake Tanganyika" and "Mixed Blood or your son Léopold", many poignant and delightful passages, especially in the journeys across the magnificent Kivu province, which today, along with bordering Rwanda and Burundi, has been scarred by fratricidal wars. That Leodine, in the opening novel, happens to be an adolescent, as was Leopold in "Mixed Blood", isn’t fortuitous, for it is at that vulnerable period of one’s life that one’s personality takes form. In Albert Russo’s Africa you will find humankind’s infinite diversity and, amid such richness, a quest for the deep self.”
Eric Tessier
“Albert Russo has recreated through a young African boy's joys and struggles many of the tensions of modern life, straight and gay, black and white, third world and first ... all of these tensions underlie this story of a biracial child adopted by a benevolent American. Mixed Blood or Your son Leopold is a non-stop, gripping read!"
Edmund White
Eclipse over Lake Tanganyika reviewed in WORLD LITERATURE TODAY.
Russo's novel is as interesting and ambiguous as Columbus's journal : every page demonstrates the writer's fascination for the pristine luxuriant Eden-like land and his utter sadness at what havoc men have wreaked on such plentiful beauty: “a décor of papier mâché, which a single spark could incinerate.” Oswald is the Christ of this New African Testament. One scene shows him metaphorically crucified at the hands of his never satisfied lover, who is also, by the way, everyone else's, Damiana Antoniades, the Great Whore of Bujumbura. As the local medic, Oswald performs a few ‘miracles’, but he fails to convert anyone, and finally vanishes with his “plans and ideals”, forsaken in the symbolical flood of a tropical storm, from which he is retrieved by the King of Burundi himself, who was just driving by and handed Oswald a towel for him to dry himself with : "AlI of a sudden Oswald fell out-of-place. He had come all the way from America, full of plans and ideaIs, which seemed to have vanished, swept away by the cloudburst and the Mwami’s unexpected appearance." Once Oswald, the symbolical upholder of ideals, is out of the way, Burundi becomes the realm of crooked politicians, disgruntled white trash and killers, who inscribe on the immaculate landscape an Apocalypse of red and black. The metaphorical “eclipse” of the title is the change from an immaculate majestic blackness “carved in ebony” to the blackness of an evil fed and encouraged by the white colonisation of Africa, whose aftermath extends from the Katanga rebellion in the sixties (the time of the novel) to the Rwandan genocide of the nineties. Albert Russo raises then the ultimate question of the effect of colonialism, a political system in which humaneness (love, tolerance and delight in natural beauty) is eventually dissolved into the disheartening racial equality of greed, contempt and murder.
ENGLISH / FRANCAIS
Norway to Spitzberg
Norway to Spitzberg - 144 pages photos: Albert Russo -
Blurb.com
Hardcover / Edition de luxe: $ 40 - 35 € Softcover / Couverture souple: $ 30 - 25 €
The majestic views of the Norwegian fjords and of the polar circle / Les fiords norvégiens et la magie du cercle polaire
See some Photographs in thumb-index Navigator (up to the left) "Gallery / Galerie Photos I"
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Eilat, Petra & Tel Aviv, the rainbow cities / cités arc-en-ciel Blurb.com
Finalist in the the 2011 National Indie Excellence awards
in General Photography
Photos & texts by Albert Russo
Softcover - édition normale $34.95 - € 35
Hardcover, Dust Jacket - édition de luxe $47.95 - € 48
Hardcover, ImageWrap - édition de luxe $49.95 - €49
order site - site de commandes:
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/search?search=albert+russo&commit=Search
See some Photographs in thumb-index Navigator (up to the left) "Gallery / Galerie Photos I"
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France: Art, Humour & Nature - Photos: Albert Russo - 120 pages - Blurb.com
Softcover - édition normale $29.95 - € 30
Hardcover, Dust Jacket - édition cartonnée $41.95 - € 42
Hardcover, ImageWrap - édition de luxe $45.95 - €46
order site - site de commandes:
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/search?search=albert+russo&commit=Search
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See some Photographs in thumb-index Navigator (up to the left) "Gallery / Galerie Photos I"
Voir quelques photos dans onglet Navigateur en haut à gauche "Gallery / Galerie Photos I"
Noël in / à Paris + Champs Elysées - Photos : Albert Russo
- 80 pages
Softcover - édition normale : $25.95 - €26 Hardcover, Dust Jacket - édition de luxe - $36.95 - €37
order site - site de commandes:
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/search?search=albert+russo&commit=Search
See some Photographs in thumb-index Navigator (up to the left) "Gallery / Galerie Photos I"
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Viennese / kaleidoscope / viennois
160 pages -photos: Albert Russo - Blurb.com Hardcover / Edition de luxe: $ 40 - € 35
Softcover / Couverture souple: $ 30 - € 25
Vienna, Austria, the formal imperial capital and the modern city / Vienne, la cité impériale et la ville moderne
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New York at heart / au coeur
Xlibris (USA) Photos by / d’Albert Russo. Published in the USA / Publié aux USA par Xlibris (www.Xlibris.com ) 2007.
80 pages. Softcover / Edition normale - $ 26.99 Hardcover / Edition de luxe - $ 32.99 Xlibris Corporation, 2 International Plaza, suite 340 - Philadelphia, PA 19113 Orders@Xlibris.com - www.xlibris.com - Tel:1.888.795.4274 - Fax: 610-915-0294
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City of Lovers - City of Wonder / Paris la Grosse Pomme
- Xlibris
(USA) Photos by / d’Albert Russo. Published in the USA / Publié aux USA par Xlibris
(www.Xlibris.com ) 2007. 80 pages. Softcover / Edition normale - $ 26.99 Hardcover / Edition de luxe - $ 32.99 Xlibris Corporation, 2 International Plaza, suite
340 - Philadelphia, PA 19113 Orders@Xlibris.com - www.xlibris.com - Tel:1.888.795.4274 - Fax:
610-915-0294
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See some Photographs in thumb-index Navigator (up to the left) "Gallery / Galerie Photos I"
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Quirks / Eclats
Photos by / d’Albert Russo, Published in the USA / Publié aux USA par Xlibris
(www.Xlibris.com ) 2007. 80 pages. Softcover / Edition normale - $ 26.99 Hardcover / Edition de luxe - $ 32.99 direct order / commande directe: www.xlibris.com/AlbertRusso.html Xlibris Corporation, 2 International Plaza, suite 340 - Philadelphia, PA 19113 Orders@Xlibris.com - www.xlibris.com - Tel:1.888.795.4274 - Fax: 610-915-0294
See some Photographs in thumb-index Navigator (up to the left) "Gallery / Galerie Photos I"
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Israel at heart / au coeur
Photos by / d’Albert Russo, Published in the USA / Publié aux USA par Xlibris
(www.Xlibris.com ) 2007. 80 pages. Softcover / Edition normale - $ 26.99 Hardcover / Edition de luxe - $ 32.99 direct order / commande directe: www.xlibris.com/AlbertRusso.html Xlibris Corporation, 2 International Plaza, suite 340 - Philadelphia, PA 19113 Orders@Xlibris.com - www.xlibris.com - Tel:1.888.795.4274 - Fax: 610-915-0294
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Granada, Ronda & Costa del Sol
Photos by / d’Albert Russo. Published in the USA / Publié aux USA par Xlibris (www.Xlibris.com ) 2007.
80 pages. Softcover / Edition normale - $ 26.99 Hardcover / Edition de luxe - $ 32.99 Xlibris Corporation, 2 International Plaza, suite 340 - Philadelphia, PA 19113 Orders@Xlibris.com - www.xlibris.com - Tel:1.888.795.4274 - Fax: 610-915-0294
See some Photographs in thumb-index Navigator (to the left) "Gallery / Galerie Photos I"
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Rainbow Nature
- Xlibris (USA) Photos by / d’Albert Russo. Published in the USA / Publié aux USA par Xlibris (www.Xlibris.com) 2007. 80 pages. Softcover / Edition normale
- $ 26.99 Hardcover / Edition de luxe - $ 32.99 Xlibris Corporation, 2 International Plaza, suite 340 - Philadelphia, PA 19113 Orders@Xlibris.com -
www.xlibris.com - Tel:1.888.795.4274 - Fax: 610-915-0294
See some Photographs in thumb-index Navigator (up to the left) "Gallery / Galerie Photos I"
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Italia Nostra
Xlibris (USA) Photos by / d’Albert Russo. Published in the USA / Publié aux USA par Xlibris
(www.Xlibris.com ) 2007. 80 pages. Softcover / Edition normale - $ 26.99 Hardcover / Edition de luxe - $ 32.99 Xlibris Corporation, 2 International Plaza, suite
340 - Philadelphia, PA 19113 Orders@Xlibris.com - www.xlibris.com - Tel:1.888.795.4274 - Fax:
610-915-0294
Voir quelques photos dans onglet Navigateur en haut à gauche "Galerie / Galery Photos I"
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See some Photographs in thumb-index Navigator (up to the left) "Galerie / Galery Photos I"
Body Glorious / Corps à Corps
Photos by / d’Albert Russo. Published in the USA / Publié aux USA par Xlibris (www.Xlibris.com) 2006. 80 pages. Softcover / Edition normale - $ 26.99 Hardcover /
Edition de luxe - $ 32.99 direct order / commande directe:
http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/%20bookdisplay.asp?bookid=34031
Xlibris Corporation, 2 International Plaza, suite 340 - Philadelphia, PA 19113 Orders@Xlibris.com - www.xlibris.com - Tel:1.888.795.4274 - Fax: 610-915-0294
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ENGLISH
Eric, my father's lover
“publication in
2009-2010“
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Review of the original novel published in the author's own French version in two parts: L'AMANT DE MON PERE (Le Nouvel Athanor) and JOURNAL ROMAIN (Editions Hors Commerce and Cercle Poche, Paris, France)
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Presentation by FRANCE CULTURE, the French National Public Radio. Reviewed in WORLD LITERATURE TODAY - USA
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“The readers familiar with Albert Russo’s writings are in for a surprise: his latest novel in French is a postmodern one. After Mr Russo’s sensuous African novels, atmospheric and teeming with local colour, after the gentle caricature of his humorous Zapinette Vidéo, the bilingual writer dons the modernistic costume of the author as puppeteer, relishing in his own power to lose his readers within a glass maze in which, at the end of the journey, they only gaze down at the ‘mise en abyme’ of themselves. Frank, the hero of L’Amant de mon père (My Father's Lover) is the archetypal one. He is a handsome young man of extensive means, the only heir of a garment industry fortune, who has sailed smoothly through an easy life in an exclusive area of Paris, and, besides, can boast of two unmistakable assets on the threshold of adult life in bourgeois Paris: a lovely girl-friend and a degree in computer science. But one day, Frank finds some letters of his father's, written to a male lover, and an old photograph of his father and the man. Then, Frank's steady comfortable life topples down. The discovery takes place on page 1; Albert Russo then offers us a few lines of doubt and half-hearted hesitation, and straight after, launches into a cat and mouse game with his readers, often bordering on farce or caricature, but always subtly beside or beyond them. Trying to summarize the rest of the plot would be too long and no doubt pointless; two examples of unexpected and incongruous situations will suffice. On learning about the homosexual affair, Frank falls under the spell of his father’s still unknown lover and then meets him, a much older but still quite attractive man. He follows him into a Paris department store, where the two indulge in a mutual game of seduction, in which Eric, the older man, acts the sales clerk, piles trendy clothes onto Frank and leaves him with his business card and the bill to pay! Much later in the novel Frank's mother poisons her husband in a scene fraught with sensuousness and malaise around a feast of... red berry herbal tea. Mr Russo loves unsettling us, verging on the caricature or the burlesque, but never quite giving way to them. In the meantime, Frank has become Eric’s lover. In the homorous affair which develops, Albert Russo manages to show us Frank's predicament. The young man is neither gay nor straight but simply looking for someone other than the man or woman he holds in his arms, the father he could not love because of his mother's overbearingness or the mother he could not love either because loving her meant giving himself up. In L’Amant de mon père, love is a merry-go- round none of the characters can escape.” John Shepley, American author and translator of Italo Calvino and Leonardo Sciacia, among other contemporary Italian and French writers. "I liked L’AMANT DE MON PERE very much. Your novel carried me along by the strength of its plot and characters. Incidents were resolved by the sense of inevitability that you managed to convey. I wondered about the close of the novel, where the characters and outcome are dismissed in two brief sentences. And yet even that "works." In short, the novel creates its own terms and then lives up to them.
" L´AMANT DE MON PÈRE - JOURNAL ROMAIN. Albert Russo.144 pages - 13 euros - Editions Hors Commerce, Paris, 2003 - ISBN: 2-910-599-97-3
‘L’Amant de mon père’ (My father’s lover): the words struck and the story kept its promise. That title had a taste of sulphur, since in French, ‘amant’ can only be masculine. But it’s not enough to sound provocative, there must be substance. This is what Albert Russo gives us again with ‘L’Amant de mon père - journal romain’, which is the sequel to ‘L’Amant de mon père’. In literature as in love, some stories aren’t terminated just with the word End, they follow their own path, with twists and turns that sometimes look like quirks of fate. This sequel was above all a request from the readers of ‘L’Amant de mon père’, which has gone into its third printing in France and appeared in 2002 in an Italian translation. At this point of the story, we encounter a distraught Eric Wangermée, overwhelmed by the fatal convergence of events in which love and death intertwine, resulting in the destruction of several lives, after the murder of the son and the father, the latter having been diabolically fomented by the young man’s mother, with the help of her boyfriend. Both murders were attributed to Eric Wangermée, the lover of the two unfortunate men. Acquitted, after an 18-month incarceration, Eric Wangermée is freed. Freed but broken. His is but an appearance of freedom, for the society he now faces is fraught with malice and prejudice. Can a homosexual ever redeem himself? Wasn’t there some truth in the accusations formulated against him? Even though Justice has cleared Eric Wangermée of the two murder charges, he is now being watched by his peers and his former detractors with fierce attention, as if the proven innocence of a homosexual was more difficult to bear than the guilt of a ‘bona fide’ straight assassin. In spite of the new laws, recognizing the basic rights of gays and lesbians in France, the age-old debate between the implicit legitimacy of heterosexuality and the socially fuzzy status of the homosexual, goes on. The reactions may be subtler in certain quarters, yet brutality is never far away and gay bashers are on the prowl, and not only in the provinces. Recently, a couple of gay men were found murdered in a public garden along the Seine, not far from the new Bibliothèque de France, in the heart of the capital. Then too, there are some disturbing statistics: four times as many gay adolescents attempt suicide as young heterosexuals. There will always be, it seems, a certain malaise, if not outright intolerance, within the family, in schools, as well as at the workplace, towards homosexuals, especially if they have had the courage of coming out. One cannot cancel two thousand years of religious taboo in one or even two generations. With that veil of opprobrium still hanging over him, Eric Wangermée decides to leave France and to settle in Rome. This change of setting is like a survival kit. In his new surroundings, he will breathe a different air, make new discoveries, face new people, learn to speak another language. All this will help put some balm over his wounds, if not regenerate him. This is not to say that his pain has been erased, its memory will always linger in the back of his mind, but his new Roman preoccupations will act as a sort of catharsis. Eric Wangermée is overwhelmed by the beauty of the Eternal City, its historical verticality, as much as he is taken by the humdrum of everyday life, by all the little things he has to learn in order to make himself comfortable in it. He is thrust upon the proscenium of Italian life, when not upon the stage itself, with the feeling that he can be part of that long and uninterrupted history which stretches from Petronius to Fellini and now to Roberto Begnini. Fortuitously, he will encounter a trio of gay musketeers, towards whom he will act as their d’Artagnan: Sven, the Swede, Menelik, the young Ethiopian and Alfiero, the Roman. In this ménage à trois which, after many a procrastination and, at times, painstaking reassessment of each other’s roles, has found an equilibrium between love, tolerance and jealousy, he will land like a tsunami on foreign shores. The erotic romps which Albert Russo describes with a rare verve and indeed voltairian buoyancy, using a language at once raw and sensual, never vulgar, inflame the senses of his protagonists, reigniting dormant passions while at the same time, turning around the tables and casting new roles. Sven, who had suffered so much from Menelik’s intrusion into Alfiero’s life and who, thanks to the persistant efforts, the patience and the generosity of his Italian lover, had finally accepted to take his place in this unconventional triangle, to the point where he became the staunchest defender of the young Ethiopian, is metamorphosed by the sudden arrival of Eric in their midst. He’s totally besotted with the Frenchman and this unexpected turn of events reshuffle the cards of the triangle. The magic of love has played once again havoc with the fate of these men, breaking the harmony of their much admired and sometimes envied setup. Then the question arises as to the durability of happiness. Is passion thus necessarily distructive and to what degree does this poison act as a snuffer? If I have used the word ‘erotic’ above, it isn’t fortuitous, for eroticism plays an important part in this novel, in particular, as well as in Albert Russo’s fiction in general. Simply because it belongs to life and to its pleasures. This reminds me of a conversation I had with the author, in which he told me that someone reproached him for having introduced explicit sex in a text he deemed of a ‘serious’ nature. Apparently that person could not reconcile the fact that ‘serious’ thoughts could be followed, within the same pages, by the description of the sexual act. And why indeed, may I ask, would they have to exclude each other? Is the impact of one’s reflective thoughts diminished in any way, the instant one slides into bed with a partner? I think not! So, let’s get to the crux of the matter and have a peek at some of the the book’s sizzling scenes, which could very well fit in a contemporary anthology of eroticism. After a scrumptious dinner, washed down by generous servings of Lambrusco wine and digestive liqueurs, Sven invites our hero to join him in their private sauna cabin and a befuddled Eric is drawn into a the heights of sensuality; befuddled is the word, for our hero who considers the three musketeers as his saviors, never contemplated having sex with any of the men, still haunted as he is by his recent tragedy. Here a parallel can be drawn between the delights of the table and those of flesh. The comparison may be a cliché, but if you read the pages Albert Russo dedicates to these pleasures, you will certainly agree with me that they are indeed pieces of anthology and that they are not strangers to each other. In both cases, he writes as an aesthete and invites us to join him to the feast, knowingly. His descriptions of physical love are as explicit as they are sensual. He is never crude and never does he fall into the mediocrity of those pitiful orgies one finds in the so-called erotic novels that purport to imitate real life. In Albert Russo’s work, the human side always prevails, whatever the circumstances. Which, think of it, is quite subversive in itself, and far more interesting. Eric Tessier
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