Homunkulus: postmodern fairy tales for grownups
Homunculus is billed as a collection of sixteen “fairy tales for adults” with something for every reader. The author has largely retained the classical fairy-tale structure with its elements of surprise and the constant intertwining of the real and unreal, but he transcends the sugar-sweet endings we are familiar with. Prokopiev presents us with a wide range of more “mature” themes too – the erotic, the tragic, feelings of alienation. Some of the stories are related to internationally known fairy tales such as “Tom Thumb”, where the main character struggles with an oedipal bond with his mother, or “The Huntsman”, told from the perspective of the hunter sent out to kill Snow White. Others go back to Macedonian folk roots or have been freely composed by Prokopiev himself.