Quinn, a sculptor literally and figuratively at the end of his rope, flees New York City for a capeside artists' colony. Fixated by trash, and reading Woolf’s The Waves, Quinn trawls the streets and beaches of the little fishing village, tentatively exploring his relationship to the place, his art, his new friends, and himself. Moods of weather and landscape suffuse this sparely written tale that, like sunlight that pierces storm-clouds, illuminates exactly how much is at stake in Quinn's haunting search for the sublime.

“Quinn's Passage is a delicious book, evoking the helical flows of its patron saint, Virginia Woolf, as well as the elegiac patterns of writers like Carole Maso in its pilgrimage of an artist's soul through a world recognizable to any of us. The novel combines a deft, poetic ear and nimble erudition and poetry to evoke the rhythm of time, a tidal succession of events, memories, visions, and passions which embody ‘the ocean dance’ that its title character ‘choreographs under his breath.’”

—Michael Joyce

"The will to be transformed away from the senses via the senses is a sensualist's mission. It is Quinn's desire, as it is the desire of the gods. The reader will see that such a desire infuses language with a passion for breathing and utterance equally."

—Fanny Howe

 

"A beautifully cadenced and charmed performance by a young writer of great soul and promise."

—Carole Maso

 

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Kazim Ali is assistant professor of Liberal Arts at The Culinary Institute of America and an editor with the non-profit press Nightboat Books. His first book of poems The Far Mosque will be published by Alice James Books in 2005. Quinn's Passage is his first novel.

books just released:

Bright Felon, essay-poetry, http://www.kazimali.com/book_brightfelon.html
The Disappearance of Seth, a novel, http://www.kazimali.com/book_seth

forthcoming, fall 2010:

Orange Alert: Essays on Poetry, Art and the Architecture of Silence, in the Poets on Poetry Series, from the University of Michigan Press

    Websites of Interest:
      + Kazim Ali
      + Nightboat Books
      + Fine Arts Work Center