Raphus Press
RAPHUS PRESS
  • The Grand Master of Assassins
  • The Door Handle and The English Teacher
  • The Companion
  • Notes from Undersea
  • City Life
  • Tangents
  • Waxworks
  • In the Garden
  • The Cult of the Dead
  • Dandelion Spring
  • The Devouring
  • The Tattered Shadows
  • The Study of Sleep and Other Stories
  • Hotel Désirée
  • Enfilades
  • Noctivagations / Noctivagações
  • The Blind Cinephile & Other Projections
  • The Gardens of Alamut
  • Oceans of Hope
  • There's No Way to Escape
  • Crystal Castles (2nd Edition)
  • You Always Wake Me…
  • Memento
  • OpiuM
  • The Hanging
  • Burned Hill Dream
  • Being with Thin Girls
  • Chapel of Celluloid
  • The Black Hand
  • Hogsbane
  • The Secretariat... (Reprint Edition)
  • The House at the Edge of the Dark
  • The Malaise Trap
  • The Curious Case of Jan Torrentius
  • Civilian
  • Scarlet Sin
  • Phantasmagorias
  • Canopy
  • The Secrets of Decay
  • The Drowned Labyrinth
  • The Doubles
  • Bibliomania
  • Out of Print
  • Contact
  • About
  • The Grand Master of Assassins
  • The Door Handle and The English Teacher
  • The Companion
  • Notes from Undersea
  • City Life
  • Tangents
  • Waxworks
  • In the Garden
  • The Cult of the Dead
  • Dandelion Spring
  • The Devouring
  • The Tattered Shadows
  • The Study of Sleep and Other Stories
  • Hotel Désirée
  • Enfilades
  • Noctivagations / Noctivagações
  • The Blind Cinephile & Other Projections
  • The Gardens of Alamut
  • Oceans of Hope
  • There's No Way to Escape
  • Crystal Castles (2nd Edition)
  • You Always Wake Me…
  • Memento
  • OpiuM
  • The Hanging
  • Burned Hill Dream
  • Being with Thin Girls
  • Chapel of Celluloid
  • The Black Hand
  • Hogsbane
  • The Secretariat... (Reprint Edition)
  • The House at the Edge of the Dark
  • The Malaise Trap
  • The Curious Case of Jan Torrentius
  • Civilian
  • Scarlet Sin
  • Phantasmagorias
  • Canopy
  • The Secrets of Decay
  • The Drowned Labyrinth
  • The Doubles
  • Bibliomania
  • Out of Print
  • Contact
  • About

The Malaise Trap​ 
Andrew Hook

Reality must be caught in the trap, we must move quicker than reality. Ideas, too, have to move faster than their shadows. But if they go too quickly, they lose even their shadows. No longer having even the shadow of an idea. ... Words move quicker than meaning, but if they go too quickly, we have madness: the ellipsis of meaning can make us lose even the taste for the sign.
​(Jean Baudrillard, The Perfect Crime) 
And behold, from dark regions of the underworld comes the second season of Black Heralds!
With a development similar to the narratives of a European art film, The Malaise Trap, by Andrew Hook, provides us with a glimpse of the protagonist's routine, immersed in her project to find insects images for a photographic exhibition. Pierced by moments of existential crisis and ambiguous narrations, the tale slowly unfolds in a growing tension, whose strangeness oscillates between the terror of obsession and the supernatural, in an ending as surprising as it is brutal.

The Malaise Trap, bilingual (English and Portuguese) book, hard cover, 5.5 x 7.87 In. (14 x 20 cm), internal illustrations, limited edition (84 copies) with a few additional hors d’oeuvre copies. Available for pre-sale (shipment in 10 days) in our website (below, via PayPal) or in the Ziesings (US) in 15 days.
The Malaise Trap + Mail expenses for all the world (USD 42.00)

The opinion of our readers

Golden Age of Clairvoyance
"Well I have received the books today and I had certain high expectations and I must say such high expectations were well exceeded. The selectivity of the authors as I may have mentioned before (both individually and in combination) and translations are impeccable. The book design is exquisite and enhances the holistic reading experience (by way of comparison, on first seeing the books I had the same sense of elation when I had received my first Sylph Edition Cahiers a few years ago)."
(Andrew Condous)
"The books look really nice - I'm especially liking the full-color images inside. Very good design."
(Damian Murphy)
"The chapbooks are beautiful. Well done! Equally engaging for the eye and mind."
(Rachel Kinbar)
 "The initial print-run of all three is, of course, low, so any interested readers should make a quick decision; because I do hope Raphus continue on their path of intriguing little translations of the recovered uncanny and esoteric."
​(Mark Andresen at Pan Review)
The great weird and fantastic connoisseur, Des Lewis, made an insightful review of Black Mirror, the second chapbook in the series, available in this link.
Spiritual Meaning of the Massacres
"​Many thanks for sending me a copy of The Mendicant. It really looks rather good – a bit like one of the books you read about in short stories that start off ‘Beware if you read these words... too late!"
(Stephen Cashmore)
"It's a marvelous production, and it's great that you have resurrected the remarkable title piece. I also enjoyed the pamphlet (...). Long may Raphus Press reign!"
(Chris Mikul)
"I am absolutely delighted with them [The Mendicant of the Books and The Sacred Abysmal Perspective]!  They are both true examples of true and original creative philosophical ingenuity, originality and also design. They are fantastickal chapbooks and it is an equal delight to have been able to contribute and to assist in other ways. Although I saw the proofed editions when you e-mailed them to me, now that they are in my hands, they veritably glow and crackle and weep with their malign embers. 

I shall take myself off on a sacred journey this weekend, like the early priests going to Tibet, and will immerse myself in the deep folds and ravines these chapbooks open up."
​(Jonathan Wood)
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