"The volume brings together the great Slovak philosopher/poet Raobert Gaal's two works of fiction, Agnomia and On Wing, though they are by no means ordinary novellas. On Wing is atomized into hundreds of tiny aphorisms, dreams, anecdotes, and inquiries, while Agnomia is a long block of seemingly chaotic prose taking its structural cues from--and culminating in the description of a concert by--the renowned saxophonist and composer John Zorn."

Text and photographic illustrations on special heavy chamois paper.

One long, unbroken paragraph, blending memoir, fiction, and philosophy, Agnomia takes the reader on an intercontinental journey from Lower Manhattan to the Little Quarter of Prague. But most of all it takes the reader on a tour of the writer's mind; meditations on tautology, sexuality, and art culminate in an evocation of a concert given by the composer and saxophonist John Zorn--back cover.

Poetry. Philosophy. Translated from the Slovak by David Short. Illustrations by Viktor Kopasz. Heralded by Joshua Cohen as "The Aphorism Master," Róbert Gál revives the forgotten art of the philo-poetic line with vicious wit and tremendous dexterity. NAKED THOUGHTS--his fourth book to be translated into English--is at once incendiary and revelatory, surprising and instinctual, defiant and delicate, and dares to pursue and give expression to those fugitive inspirations of the mind whose very beauty relies on their performance of contention with the structures of meaning by which they are snared and signified. Weighing the balance between the intensity of emotion and patient contemplation, NAKED THOUGHTS is a book that will satisfy voyeurs and arsonists.