The Stradivarius Poems, a Novella by Sufi writer Sharon Marcus explores a simple mystery

Sept. 19, 2008 - PRLog -- In this glowing novella, Sharon Marcus, Sufi writer gives us a contemporary example of the ancient Sufi storytelling tradition inviting us to look at extremes, both the ups and downs of the heart as well as the illusory comfort we search for in the performance art of our lives.

Ilya Firkin is an artist, a painter living in Philadelphia whose attachment to his work, his art, is eclipsed by a dual sense of loss, first in divorce and then in death. The Laura who was his wife shares center stage with him in this mystical examination of the struggle to be reconciled with the beauty and misery of the human condition.

Ilya’s four year retreat from life to contemplate the pain and the joy of our earthly existence is lit up by remembrance of scenes from Laura’s past and his own. The Laura who was his wife imperceptibly merges with that other Laura, his all but imagined symbol of Petrarchan inaccessibility, whose own grief culminates in the coda of brief, weeping lyrics concluding the story.

The four years of Ilya Firkin’s compelling meditation on life, love, art and death create the canvas, a painting to study line and color, the instruments of examination transforming Ilya, moving him from each bleak plane of suffering to eloquent heights of realization.

A story thoughtfully and skillfully told, beautifully written, The Stradivarius Poems speaks directly to anyone with a deep longing to understand the towering strength and the infinite fragility of the human experience.

Media contact Darlene Montgomery. Email lifedreams@idirect.com.

For more on Sharon Marcus and The Stradivarius Poems visit http://www.sufipress.com.
The Stradivarius Poems
by Sharon Marcus
The Sufi Press
ISBN: 9780973753462
$28.95

Date of Publication:
September 20, 2008.

www.sufipress.com
Distributed by White Knight Books (Canada)
Distributed by Hushion House (U.S.A.)