Vida Engstrand of The Overlook Press announces that they are publishing Max Frei‘s The Stranger in English this April. Frei is a Russian author based in Moscow, and the book is about “a lazy glutton [also named Max Frei] who sleeps all day and passes the night hours smoking, eating, and slacking. Then one day he is suddenly transplanted to a dream universe where his new pastimes include drumming up mischief as a magical secret agent.” The Stranger is the first book of a (so-far) ten-volume series called The Labyrinths of Echo.
Overlook’s press release for the book says that “Russian literary sensation Max Frei makes his English language debut in The Stranger, a highly philosophical comic fantasy infused with extraordinary wit, a voice that is beyond unique, and a complex web of clues that keeps the pages turning. Already a bestseller throughout Europe, this astonishing story is the fantasy epic for a new century.
“Once a self-described ‘classic loser’—who, if it weren’t for bad luck, wouldn’t have any luck at all—Max is a social outcast. An insomniac who sleeps all day, a night owl in a world of larks, he is an unapologetic glutton with nothing to show for himself but empty cigarette packs. At twenty-something, Max is never the early bird and he never gets the worm.
“Then one day he suddenly finds himself transplanted into an alternate dream universe in the city of Echo, summoned by the chief of the Secret Police. In this world, he is deemed a species of magical secret agent, is made a member of the Department of Absolute Order, and must solve unimaginably extravagant cases with his exceptional new powers. Fate smiles on Max in the city of Echo, where everything that happens to him happens for a reason, and the one-time slacker is known reverently as the ‘unequalled Sir Max.’ As Max learns how to navigate through his bizarre new reality, he takes readers on the journey of a lifetime punctuated by incredible events and a cast of unforgettable characters.”