Review: The Albaru is a short but complex tale, and I felt the description of the story itself was somewhat more understandable than some of the scenes within it. I found it intriguing, and the premise quite unique, as I often do when listening to a language that I basically know, but when local idioms are inserted, for example: I can find myself losing the thread of the conversation for a time.
Set in the future of our current reality, somehow The Albaru still had the feel of an ancient tale, as a man and his wife deal with some of the ordinary complications of daily life at their rural estate when they become fixated on a certain word, the ‘albaru.’ This discovery leads them to a wonderous discovery that is the solution to their personal conundrum.
Description: This speculative fiction short story deals with the fate of endangered languages in the mid Twenty-first Century and people struggling for preserving words that are on the verge of disappearing.
“There were the “orphan-words,” which were not so much sought after, and then there were the “full-words.” An orphan-word was a rare word, no longer used, whose sense had been lost: no one knew what it meant. The full-words in contrast, were rare words–even extremely rare–that were on the verge of disappearing, but whose meaning had been preserved. Between orphan-words and full-words, there was a large price difference, for a full-word was considered a gem.”
English translation of the story originally published in Corsican and French.
- Published: February 13, 2012
- ASIN: B007948BLA
- Genre: Science Fiction, Speculative, Short Story
- Available on most Amazon websites offering e-books.
- Source: Author
- Author website: http://www.paulfranceschi.com/
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