Datura

Datura by Leena Krohn, translated by Anna Volmari and Juha Tupasela. From the author of the World Fantasy Award finalist Tainaron, one of the most respected Finnish writers of her generation...Our narrator works as an editor and writer for a magazine specializing in bringing oddities to light, a job that sends her exploring through a city that becomes by degrees ever less familiar. From a sunrise of automated cars working in silent precision to a possible vampire, she discovers that reality may not be as logical as you think-and that people are both odder and more ordinary as they might seem. Especially if you're eating datura seeds. Especially when the legendary Voynich Manuscript is involved. Where will it all end? Pushed by the mysterious owner of the magazine, our narrator may wind up somewhere very strange indeed. Datura is luminous-at once a secret history of losers, dreamers, and quacks, and a lyrical argument on the nature of reality. I thoroughly enjoyed it. - Sofia Samatar, A Stranger in Olondria