The Desert of Lop

by Raul Schrott, Karen Leeder (Translator)

A poetic love story, a reminiscence of countries and Raoul Schrott tells a story about a man and three women, about a little town in the desert and about travelling on other continents. Once a week Raoul Louper catches the bus to Cairo, and having arrived there he starts telling stories... He tells stories about love and the travels that have led him to and away from the three women in his Elif, Francesca and Arlette. He talks about single moments and about time slipping by. He remembers 'singing sands', quicksand, coastal strips and deserts. Again and again his thoughts return to the three women and to the countries where he used to live. Raoul Schrott has written a book in the spirit of Baricco or Calasso, a novella with a hundred and one chapters that tells us about love in its many guises, about the allure of the exotic and the new.

103 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Joseph Schreiber]

This is a very, very spare novella—101 short chapters, almost prose poems but not quite. It is a story of one man's relationships with three women, the places those marriages took him, and the way they became undone. Detail is scant, connections are sketched and filled in with sand—dunes, storms, waves of shifting sand. A little science, a fable or two, and ultimately a journey into the desertified heart of China. The work feels, perhaps, a little too empty at first, but it builds, gradually, layer upon layer, to an intriguing reading experience—one that nudges the curious reader to search out some of places visited and promises that deserts and sand dunes will never look quite the same.
A longer review can be found here: https://roughghosts.com/2021/11/28/a-...