The latest addition to my website is Enrique Vila-Matas‘ El viaje vertical [The Vertical Voyage], one of his books that has yet to be translated into English though it has been translated into Catalan, Chinese, Hebrew and Norwegian. This is very different from his usual novels, in that it has few literary references and fewer … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Enrique Vila-Matas‘ Historia abreviada de la literatura portátil (A Brief History of Portable Literature). This novel (?) follows a format similar to several of his other works, in that he takes a literary idea – in this case portable literature – and sets off on a bizarre and … Read more
I have made no secret of the fact that I consider Rafael Chirbes to have been a brilliant writer and his untimely death a few months ago was a great tragedy. His last book published will be out in English next year. I am now glad to learn that a Rafael Chirbes foundation is to … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Enrique Vila-Matas‘ Exploradores del abismo [Explorers of the Abyss]. This book is not a novel but, rather, a collection of linked short stories, about what Vila-Matas calls exploring the abyss, though his ideas of what is exploring the abyss may not be shared by everyone. Only one of … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Enrique Vila-Matas‘ Dublinesca (Dublinesque). It is about a retired publisher, Samuel Riba, a former alcoholic, the alcoholism being one of the reasons for his retirement, who prided himself on publishing quality contemporary fiction in Spanish, with a fiction list which seems to match the taste of Vila-Matas. He … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Enrique Vila-Matas‘ Kassel no invita a la lógica (The Illogic of Kassel). This is the most recent to date of his novels published both in English and Spanish. It involves the participation of the narrator (i.e.Vila-Matas) in Documenta-13, an event held every five years in Kassel, Germany, devoted … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Enrique Vila-Matas‘ Aire de Dylan [Looks Like Dylan]. This book is somewhat different from many of his previous ones. Though it does start with the normal approach – our narrator invited to a conference on a specific theme – it then takes a completely different tack. The conference … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Enrique Vila-Matas‘ Doctor Pasavento. This is typical Vila-Matas, a wonderfully inventive story, full of digressions literary learning, speculations, complications and stories. It is narrated by an unnamed narrator but a man who assumes various identities, including that of Dr (and dottore, i.e. the Italian for doctor) Pasavento, Dr … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Enrique Vila-Matas‘ El mal de Montano (Montano’s Malady). This a wonderfully post-modern novel, following on from Bartleby y compañía (Bartleby & Co.), a romp through modern (primarily European and Latin American) literature and narrated by the father of the author of the book in Bartleby y compañía (Bartleby … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Enrique Vila-Matas‘ Bartleby y compañía (Bartleby & Co.). This is perhaps more literary criticism than a novel. It is narrated by a man called Marcelo who wrote a novel twenty-five years ago and has not written anything since. His new work is to be about writers he calls … Read more