Aesop’s Fables : The Cruelty of the Gods

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Carlo Gébler is an Irish writer, television director, and teacher. His publications include novels, short stories, plays, historical works and memoirs. He is a member of Aosdána. Gavin Weston is an artist and designer from Ireland and a former aid worker in West Africa. Harmattan is based both on his first hand experiences of Niger and its people and his continued involvement as an aid sponsor.

"A welcome feast of fables for our times ... Carlo Gébler's book is a wonderful, gloomy and welcome addition to the Aesopic corpus ... The stories have been re-written in a spiky, contemporary style ... The content of these pessimistic stories is thought-provoking but what makes the collection absolutely delightful is the vigor and originality of Carlo Gébler's writing. The illustrations by Gavin Weston are likewise magnificent." --The Irish Times "This repackaging of [Aesop's] fables by Carlo Gebler and illsutrator Gavin Weston is a reminder that adult minds were originally the target of this litany of pocket-sized parables ... There is very much a feeling here of the ancient sound-tracking the alarmingly present." --Sunday Independent (Dublin) "Scary new versions of ancient morality tales, Aesop's Fables, with stings in all their tails [...] are full of adult wisdom, human misfortune and bitter experiences, which, because they happen to other people, are hilarious." --Belfast Telegraph THE GREATEST COLLECTION OF FABLES EVER WRITTEN, UPDATED FOR OUR TURBULENT TIMES A witty illustrated version of the world's greatest collection of fables, allegedly written by a slave in the 5th century BC. A book for our times: as Gebler notes, Aesop has two subjects--the exercise of power and the experience of the powerless who endure life and all that it inflicts on them. This retelling of the Fables makes them relevant and richly enjoyable. Large and fierce animals kill and butcher weaker creatures; gods play games with the hopes and fears of lesser species, including men and women; and occasionally the weak turn the tables on the strong, exposing their pretensions. This is a stunning new version of a book that was often bowdlerized and used to teach moral lessons to children. Gebler's Aesop is darker and more realistic, and compulsively readable.

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