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The Drowned Land
Paperback
Publisher Price: $14.95
ISBN13: 9781962728133
Publisher: Wakefield Press
Published: Oct 20 2026
Pages: 96
Language: English
An exquisite novella following the collapse of a delicately erotic spell of lucid dreaming into nightmare and finally a sobering awakening into the promise of realism
The city of Aquelon is sheltered by moored lightsails, ensconced in a calm and misty land where the division between water and sky has dissipated. Its people are happy, free of jealousy and any ties to affection. The Emperor of Aquelon has signed a final law repealing all past and future laws and has cast his crown upon the waters. It is the era of the ineffable, without distinction between life and death, in which the lure of water leads even children to live and die as flowers, drowning themselves with smiles to drift toward a shoreless horizon of eternity.
Paul Willems (1912-97) published his first novel, Everything Here Is Real, in 1941. Three more novels and, toward the end of his life, two collections of short stories bracketed his career as a playwright.
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