Dublinesque by Enrique Vila-Matas

Dublinesque by Enrique Vila-Matas

Shortlisted for the 2013 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Samuel Riba is about to turn 60. A successful publisher in Barcelona, he has edited many of his generation’s most important authors. But he is increasingly prone to attacks of anxiety – inspired partly by giving up alcohol, and partly by his worries about the future of the book. Looking for distraction, he concocts a spur-of-the-moment trip to Dublin, a city he has never visited but about which he once had a vivid dream. Riba sets off for Dublin on the pretext that he wishes to honour James Joyce’s Ulysses, and to hold, on Bloomsday, a funeral for the age of print. But as he and his friends give their orations, a mysterious figure in a mackintosh hovers in the cemetery, looking rather like Joyce’s protégé Samuel Beckett. Is it Beckett, or is it the writer of genius that Riba has spent his whole career trying, and failing, to find? As he ponders this, and other profound questions, he marks a death but makes some illuminating discoveries about life. Mixing fact and fiction, irony and pathos, Dublinesque is a novel of ideas that grabs at your heart. Its first English-language publication will coincide with Bloomsday 2012, a significant year for Joyce lovers in that it marks the ninetieth anniversary of the publication of Ulysses, and the year Joyce's work comes out of copyright.

A brilliant, funny novel; an expertly woven tapestry of literary allusions… Enrique Vila-Matas has created a masterpiece -- Jacqueline McCarrick * Times Literary Supplement *
One of the most pleasurable and joyous novels of the year -- John Self * Independent *
An exquisite and original book in which literature does not make us think about life: it is life * Le Magazine Littéraire *
Extremely funnyOne of Vila-Mata's great talents is to make his digressions and inventions entirely absorbing -- Nick Caistor * Times Literary Supplement *
Hugely entertaining…Vila-Matas enjoyed himself writing Dublinesque, that is obvious, and the reader will also enjoy – and collaborate in – this delightful literary exercise that is clever without being knowing, lightly erudite but never pretentious -- Eileen Battersby * Irish Times *

Born in Barcelona in 1948, Enrique Vila-Matas is widely considered to be one of Spain's most important contemporary novelists, and Dublinesque has been declared his masterpiece. His extraordinary oeuvre, translated into 30 languages, includes Bartleby & Co, Montano (longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize) and Never Any End to Paris (a finalist for the Best Translated Book Award).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781846554896
ISBN 10	1846554896
Title	Dublinesque
Author	Enrique Vila Matas
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Vintage Publishing
Year published	2012-06-14
Number of pages	320
Prizes	Short-listed for Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2013 (UK)
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable