POSTCARD FROM ALBANIA is a 15,000 word/64 page travel diary chronicling the author's recent visit to a "postage stamp-sized country" that, in 100 years, has undergone a millennium of wrenching political upheavals, as well as religious and economic convulsions. Think: Ottoman Empire / monarchy / fascism / totalitarian communist state / Western-style democracy. Think: Catholic / Orthodox / Muslim / atheist. Think again: bazaars / collectives / ATMs. Yet, despite decay, dissolution, or destruction of creeds, governments, and institutions, Albanians endure and thrive.

This limited edition bookwork is inkjet printed with water soluble inks on non-archival and dissolving ("Dissolvo") papers embossed, French-folded into 7" x 10" pages, and hand-sewn in a (broken) chain stitch binding. Text font is primarily Palatino but, seemingly at random, punctuation, letters, words and phrases appear in Quake. In the final signature, these embedded prose fragments, Phoenix-like, rise and reform into a series of found postcard poems. Boards and dust jacket lamination are also non-archival.

The author's photographs, graphic icons by other artists and photographers, plus reproductions of splintered Albanian picture postcards illuminate not only themes and issues in this lively, opinionated, and often insightful journal but also the people to whom it pays homage.

POSTCARD FROM ALBANIA by Tom Trusky
Signed/ numbered edition of 12, of which 10 are offered
September 2005
$400 (ppd)

Painted Smiles Press, POB 6414, Boise, Idaho 83707 USA



Naked POSTCARD FROM ALBANIA 
revealing (broken) chain stitch binding.
(Click on images to enlarge.)

POSTCARD FROM ALBANIA 
in more suitable attire.

Text spread with narrative religious icons. Icons initially appear as simultaneous visualizations of ideas or events described in the narrative but, as the narrator experiences culture shock and symptoms of some unnamed flu, Whooping Cough, and/or debilitating lung worm he contracted, their placement is knocked a-kilter: icons may precede or follow ideas or events, they may not be centered (some, in fact, go tilty, others fall into the gutter or below pagination), and the little black boxes that initially contain the icons disintegrate or disappear, entirely.

Text spread with Teuta postcard plopped atop text. How rude: text does not flow around the image! (Ah, artists' books--demanding more.)(Close readers should be able to reconstruct the hidden narrative.)

"Found" poem (from narrative text). The final signatures of POSTCARD... with four poems are printed on "Dissolvo" paper. These poems have a delicate scalloped postcard edge embossed around them.

POSTCARD... ready to mail.


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