Exploradores del abismo
Exploradores del abismo

Explorers of the abyss

Exploradores del abismo

“What are you writing about now?” Enrique Vila-Matas was asked one afternoon. After completing his last novel Doctor Pasavento, the writer felt that he had reached the end of a journey and that an abyss was looming before him. “I’m writing the title of a book”, he replied. That title was Exploradores del abismo. Inspired by that suggestive title is a book of stories about a series of protagonists on a precipice, people who live their lives on the edge and make that situation an object of their reflections. These are optimistic people, normal folk who adopt the position of explorer as they survey the horizon, imagining what could lie beyond the limits of our vision. The ‘explorers’ are not especially contemporary people, disdaining the current fashion for existential angst and instead opting for an old-fashioned, uninhibited relationship with the inevitability of the emptiness that lies before them. In reality, the stories in this volume look for connections within the abyss: paths crossed by a silhouette of a tightrope walker that ties together this volume. A book that marks the return of Enrique Vila-Matas to the form of the short story, but also to the genre of the unclassifiable tale.

PAGES296
SERIESNarrativas hispánicas
PUBLICATION03/09/2007
REVIEWS & INTERVIEWS
El País
Babelia
La Vanguardia
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TRANSLATION RIGHTS SALES

  • Portugal (Teorema)
  • France (Christian Bourgois)
  • Italy (Feltrinelli)
 
Enrique Vila-Matas

Enrique Vila-Matas

Enrique Vila-Matas was born in Barcelona in 1948 and has published a large body of narrative since his first work in 1973. He is a regular contributor to the press. He was awarded the Prize Ciudad de Barcelona and the prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger for Bartleby y companía. In 2001 he was given the Rómulo Gallegos Prize for El viaje vertical, the most coveted award for fiction in Latin America. El mal de Montano won the XXX Premio Herralde de Novela, the Critic's Award, in 2002, the Prix Médicis Etranger 2003 and the Premio Internazionale Ennio Flaiano.