Two books in one, Prose Pieces/Aftertexts includes two collections of radically experimental prose by avant-garde wordsmith Richard Kostelanetz. Aftertexts was written in 1972, “directly after a bout of reading Gertrude Stein”, according to the author. It features Kostelanetz’ attempts at what he refers to as “nonsyntactic prose”. His second major work in this vein, Prose Pieces, written between 1974-1984, furthers his scope, and includes, among other things, single-sentence stories and sacred Hebrew texts printed backwards. The result is a disorienting read, hallucinogenic in scope and affect, in which one’s assumptions about the English language are turned upside down and shaken until something new and alien emerges.