Jumping around countries, languages, and careers is what Alexander Boldizar does best. The author of the newly published The Man Who Saw Seconds was the first post-independence Slovak citizen to graduate with a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School. Since then, he has been an art gallery director in Bali, a pseudo-geisha in Japan, a hermit in Tennessee, an attorney in San Francisco and Prague, a consultant on Wall Street, and a police-abuse watchdog and Times Square billboard writer in New York City.
However, North Vancouver is the city where he has lived the longest, since 2009. “I was eight when we escaped from Czechoslovakia. So, my first four languages were learned by virtue of being in Europe.
Chronologically, my first two languages were Slovak and Hungarian. Then Czech, because everybody in Czechoslovakia spoke Czech and Slovak. I spoke German in the refugee camp in Austria.
After moving to Canada, I learned English. I never studied the first four languages; my education was basically in English,” the writer says. His first novel, The Ugly , was a best-seller among small presses in the United States with several “Best Book of 2016” awards and lists.
After eight years, he’s back with a science fiction thriller. The Man Who Saw Seconds , released by New York-based independent publisher CLASH Books, is about a fictional character, Preble Jefferson, who can see five seconds into the future. Government agencies become aware of Preble’s gift, a manhunt ensue.
