Histria Books is pleased to announce the paperback release of The Faraway Mountains by Radu Guiasu. A finalist in two categories at the Chanticleer International Book Awards, the novel is published by Histria Fiction, an imprint of Histria Books dedicated to outstanding original storytelling.
In Radu Guiasu’s The Faraway Mountains, three young men hike into the rugged Romanian wilderness to briefly escape the suffocating reality of life under a communist dictatorship. What begins as a classic outdoor adventure quickly reveals itself as something far more subversively quiet.
Guiasu avoids the usual heavy-handed tropes of Cold War fiction. Instead, he focuses on the exact texture of male friendship pushed to its limits by both the elements and an omnipresent political paranoia. It is rare to see the claustrophobia of a surveillance state mapped so beautifully onto the open expanse of the alpine wilderness. For readers exhausted by loud, apocalyptic dystopias, this novel offers a brilliantly grounded look at resistance. It reminds us that sometimes the most radical act of defiance is simply climbing a mountain and sharing a joke with your friends.
Praise for The Faraway Mountains:
“Exploring themes of friendship and surviving in a world that is inherently hostile toward you, the book delivers a remarkable insight into the reality of life beyond the Iron Curtain through the eyes of young people who have never seen life outside the painful rule of a dictatorship.” — Readers’ Favorite
Radu Guiasu was born and raised in Bucharest, Romania during the time of the Communist dictatorship led by Nicolae Ceausescu. He moved to Canada at the age of 18, following his high school graduation. Today he is a biologist and an award-winning tenured Associate Professor in the Biology Program at Glendon College, York University in Toronto.
