Deaf Republic

Name: Deaf Republic
Author: Ilya Kaminsky
ISBN: 9781555978310

by Ilya Kaminsky

Finalist for the National Book Award • Finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Award • Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award • Winner of the National Jewish Book Award • Finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award • Finalist for the T. S. Eliot Prize • Finalist for the Forward Prize for Best Collection Ilya Kaminsky’s astonishing parable in poems asks us, What is silence? Deaf Republic opens in an occupied country in a time of political unrest. When soldiers breaking up a protest kill a deaf boy, Petya, the gunshot becomes the last thing the citizens hear—they all have gone deaf, and their dissent becomes coordinated by sign language.…

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NPR Books We Love

"This extraordinary book-length narrative work quickly became one of the most-talked-about literary books of the year in any genre – and for good reason. The collection is set in the imaginary town of Vasenka, which is occupied by soldiers who shoot the deaf nephew of two puppeteers. The whole town adopts deafness as a form of resistance, tribute and retaliation, simply refusing to hear the soldiers’ commands. “Our hearing doesn’t weaken, but something silent in us strengthens,” a chorus of townspeople proclaims. This book is practically an instruction manual for our occupied moment."

NPR Books We Love — 2019 · apps.npr.org

Elizabeth Acevedo

"And what a collection!"

By the Book: Elizabeth Acevedo · nytimes.com