Koja:The Cipher

Nicholas, an aspiring poet, and Nakota, his animalistic lover, discover a strange hole in a storage room at the end of the hallway: “Pure black and something pulsating, especially when you look too closely, the feeling that something there is not alive, yet somehow alive...” It begins with curiosity, with a thrill - the ghost hole at the end of the hallway. But then the experiment begins: “Wouldn’t it be absolutely awesome to go down there?” Nakota asks. And Nicholas replies: “Yes, but we won’t do it…” Yet from the very first moment, they have no control over this experiment - and experiments of this kind lead to obsessions, to violence, and to the irreversible change of anyone who gets too close to the ghost hole. Nicholas becomes increasingly drawn into the pull of the black abyss that threatens to swallow everything. The Cipher was awarded the Bram Stoker Award in 1991 and was recently named one of the top ten debut novels that have taken the world by storm. Apex Publications is releasing The Cipher as a newly translated edition, complete with a foreword by the author. “A monumental debut novel - as thrilling as it is terrifying.” “An ethereal rollercoaster ride from start to finish.” “The Cipher... combines relentless poetic language with the extravagantly grotesque.” “Kathe Koja is a poet - the kind who prefers to read in rundown bars rather than universities, but undoubtedly a poet.”.