London: Faber & Faber, (1969) dj. Hardcover first edition - The very rare first English language edition of this disturbing and powerful novella - recently rediscovered and re-issued in softcover. As Ella Griffiths, Faber's classics editor, noted "It's a superb novella, and I was staggered that a dystopia of such crystalline power had been buried in the English-speaking world for over half a century. In its focus on the shattering existential consequences of catastrophe Ð with its hauntingly neutral tone and narratorial anonymity Ð 'Termush' feels like a timeless parable of human alienation in a society corrupted by materialism ('we bought the commodity called survival'). Written shortly after the Cuban crisis, it has "uncanny parallels with our post-pandemic world, [it] captures the aura of our dazed societies, transmitting the uneasy aftermath and psychic fallout of a cataclysmic global event - whether refracting Cold War paranoia or the geopolitical consequences of lockdowns and quarantines. Termush is the name of the luxury hotel resort on the Atlantic coast where wealthy guests - preppers, in a sense - reserved rooms long before a nuclear disaster. They bask in radiation shelters, eating lavish meals to a soundtrack of ambient music, embarking on tourist day trips. But outside their insular ecosystem is a post-apocalyptic world, with radioactive dust falling on the sculpture park and dead birds littering the gardens. And as their reconnaissance party scouts the area, it becomes clear that their haven cannot survive for long. Disruptive guests are sedated; initial generosity towards strangers and refugees ceases as fears of contamination and limited resources grow É" Translated from the Danish by Sylvia Clayton. 110 pp. ISBN: 0-571088171.