The Sex of the Angels, the Saints in their Heaven

A Breviary

Raoul Schrott author Karen Leeder translator Arnold Mario Dall'O illustrator

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Seagull Books London Ltd

Published:8th Feb '19

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

The Sex of the Angels, the Saints in their Heaven cover

Breviaries, books of standard religious readings for particular denominations, are a familiar genre with a long pedigree. But you’ve definitely never seen a breviary like this one. The Sex of the Angels is a playful, often ironic take on the breviary in the form of a collection of letters that begins by taking up early Christian cosmology and follows the Biblical mutations of the angel from Babylon to the present day. As it goes along, Raoul Schrott also weaves in a history which ranges from ancient Greek legends of the origin of light to the medieval darkness of the eclipse. But there is more going on here than meets the eye: the letters are addressed to an unnamed “other” and chart the course of an elusive affair. They are, we come to realize, a declaration of love—or, more accurately, of yearning—but also a far-reaching poetic essay which moves between etymological history, anthropological anecdote, philosophy, and disquisition on the nature of art. The text is supplemented by sumptuous illustrations by Arnold Mario Dall’O that chart the stories of the saints, and the result is a unique dialogue between literature and art: an extraordinary and rare book about love.
 

ISBN: 9780857425553

Dimensions: 22mm x 17mm x 2mm

Weight: 454g

152 pages

2