The Fifty Year Sword is a novella written by Mark Z. Danielewski. Only 1,000 first edition English books were released. 51 of those copies are signed in marker with a "Z" (varying in color and number to coincide with the 5 colored quotation marks that signify different speakers in the text), while the first copy is signed "Mark Danielewski" in ink. A second English edition of 1,000 was released in October 2006. A trade edition--slightly revised--was published by Pantheon in October 2012.
The Fifty Year Sword uses strange formatting and colors throughout the book, much like Danielewski's previous work, House of Leaves. However, unlike House of Leaves which only contained three colors (blue, red, and purple), The Fifty Year Sword contains 5 colors which are used on quotation marks. The colors indicate which of 5 characters is speaking at the moment, according to the introduction of the book.
Read more about The Fifty Year Sword: Plot Summary, Live Performance
Famous quotes containing the words fifty, year and/or sword:
“I think when the full horror of being fifty hits you, you should stay home and have a good cry.”
—Alan Bleasdale (b. 1946)
“In certain savage tribes in New Guinea, they put the old people up in the trees and shake them once a year in the spring; if they don’t fall out they let them live another year.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Every other evening around six o’clock he left home and dying dawn saw him hustling home around the lake where the challenging sun flung a flaming sword from east to west across the trembling water.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)