World Rights Available Ex:
Canada:  English Canada, Cormorant
French:  Les Allusifs
Serbia:  Filip Visnjic A.D. Publishing
Russia:  Centrepolygraph

Part Homeric quest, part surrealist playground, and part Fellini fantasy. Sound strange? Well it is at times – strange and enchanting in the tradition of The Odyssey, Candide and Amarcord. Bursting with creativity and originality, it is the journey of Lukas of Montreal who embarks on a peculiar kind of quest to find the girl he abandoned back in Greece when he was a young boy.

After spending too many a night haunted by the memory of a long-deceased girlfriend Zephira, Lukas, convinced that dreams are where the dead and the living meet at night, hides in the seclusion of his garage, pops a sleeping pill and embarks on a dream pilgrimage to find his childhood sweetheart, Zephira.

Asleep like the dead (since he mistakenly leaves the car running in the garage) he finds himself in a psychological netherworld populated by a weird cast of characters, some he knows personally, some only historically. There are the ghosts of his present and past, such as his wife; his boyhood friend Aris; his father; his grade-school arch enemy Nestor; and then there are cameos from Marilyn Munroe and the remains of the Goddess Artemis. To his amazement (and the reader's) these apparitions are seemingly awaiting his arrival in this subconscious underworld where he will relentlessly encounter one bizarre adventure after another - even discovering his mother in bed with Mussolini (?!) while paramedics and doctors try to bring him back to life.

One thing is certain: Lukas of Montreal is on an epic quest, turned desperate pursuit, to find Zephira and discover why she has been haunting him. The resolution? You must read to find out.

"The Man Who Wanted to Drink up the Sea is an apt, entertaining bedside read...refreshingly imaginative."
-The Montreal Gazette

"Bouyoucas has written a novel that is both funny and chilling as it touches the place where fears of death hide in the daytime."
-Quill & Quire

"A novel that defies analysis. At the very least, this is not a book that is running with the pack. Its very writing and publication show that there is still room in this country for experiment, for playfulness. In the end, Bouyoucas’s novel is a welcome eccentricity, and perhaps an early indicator of a return to a search for a different kind of storytelling."
-Literary Review of Canada

"A superb novel… exuberant and colourful and poetic…"
-Metro France Magazine

"A mad-mad Odyssey… original like no other… lingers in the mind long after the last page…"
-Le Devoir

"An elegant tale, profound yet full of magic and humour, that makes you dream…"
-Le Figaro Magazine