The Collection Agency Files combines historical fact with hypothetical situations while satirically challenging the spread of evil, Nazis, deception, and war. This book features an alternate history that depicts a clever collection agent named Claudius, plus the collapse of the third Reich. Michael Mirolla is a well-established writer of novels, plays, poetry, and short-fiction. He won the prestigious Bressani Prize three times for poetry and short fiction. He is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Guernica Editions.
The Collection Agency Files features eight Sections which include self-reflexive comments by “MM” who translated the Collection Agency’s files from German into English purportedly based on original documents that survived floods and hurricanes. The book is a translation of those documents, and features mystery and intrigue, horrific facts and entirely believable fictions. Michael Mirolla has written about transnational perspectives and a “bottleneck” involving publication of translations in various nations, including Canada. (blogs.ubc.ca/translationaudiencesreception). In the opening section, “Translator’s Introductory Remarks on Finding of the Files,” a persona identified as “MM” warns readers by saying, “There is thus the real possibility that these documents are purely fiction in nature, the invention of some fertile or febrile imagination looking for an outlet in times when other activities were extremely limited” (3). Readers might consider questions regarding why this is an alternate history and not a straightforward fictional narrative. Whether confronted with fact, fiction or fraction, readers are faced with the historical values of social mechanisms, including those of a malevolent collection agency.
