The best of Enrique Vila-Matas returns to the style of the celebrated A Brief History of Portable Literature with a book about books, about the impossibility of writing, and about the ultimate meaning of literature.
A novel as erudite as it is ironic, offering a unique journey through a light and portable library of essential books while exploring themes such as the foreign voices that coexist within us or the infinite absence left by those we love—”the same absence that Eurydice left Orpheus, from which many believe writing was born.”
Vidal Escabia, the protagonist of this story, has selected 71 books in a darkroom of his house with the idea of writing a displaced, untimely, and unconventional canon over the course of 71 days—a dissident alternative to official canons. Each morning, he randomly selects one of these books and brings a fragment to light for his Canon. However, what he uncovers in his readings influences both his life and his writing. Suspicions arise about whether the author of the Darkroom Canon has an android origin and is a survivor of Barcelona’s Denver-7, or whether, on the contrary, he is using the canon to give meaning to his life in the face of the boundless love he feels—beyond time and space—for his absent daughter.
The best of Enrique Vila-Matas returns to the style of the celebrated A Brief History of Portable Literature with a book about books, about the impossibility of writing, and about the ultimate meaning of literature.
A novel as erudite as it is ironic, offering a unique journey through a light and portable library of essential books while exploring themes such as the foreign voices that coexist within us or the infinite absence left by those we love—”the same absence that Eurydice left Orpheus, from which many believe writing was born.”
Vidal Escabia, the protagonist of this story, has selected 71 books in a darkroom of his house with the idea of writing a displaced, untimely, and unconventional canon over the course of 71 days—a dissident alternative to official canons. Each morning, he randomly selects one of these books and brings a fragment to light for his Canon. However, what he uncovers in his readings influences both his life and his writing. Suspicions arise about whether the author of the Darkroom Canon has an android origin and is a survivor of Barcelona’s Denver-7, or whether, on the contrary, he is using the canon to give meaning to his life in the face of the boundless love he feels—beyond time and space—for his absent daughter.
Montevideo | Seix-Barral, 2022
This Senseless Fog | Seix Barral, 2019
Cabinet d'Amateur, an Oblique Novel | Whitechapel, 2019
Try Your Luck | Círculo de Tiza, 2018
Mac's Problem | Seix Barral, 2017
Marienbad Electric | Seix Barral, 2016
Kassel Does Not Call For Logic | Seix Barral, 2014
Girl | Alfaguara Infantil, 2013
Away From Here | Galaxia Gutenberg, 2013
Dylan's Air | Seix Barral, 2012
Children without Children | Anagrama, 1993; PRH/DeBolsillo, 2012
An Absolutely Wonderful Life. Selected Essays | PRH/Debolsillo, 2011
The slowest traveller. The art of finishing nothing | Anagram, 1992; Seix Barral, 2011
Chet Baker thinks about his art | RHM - DEBOLSILLO, 2011
In a Lonely Place | RHM - DEBOLSILLO, 2011
Dublinesque | Seix Barral, 2010; Debolsillo, 2011
Losing Theories | Seix Barral, 2010. Colección Únicos
She was Hemingway, I’m not Auster | Alfabia, 2008
Volatile Diary | Anagrama, 2008; PRH/DeBolsillo, 2016
Explorers in the Abyss | Anagrama, 2007
Doctor Pasavento + Bastian Schneider | Anagrama, 2005; PRH/DeBolsillo, 2016; Seix Barral, 2017
Light Wind in Parma | México, Sexto Piso, 2004 / España, 2008
Paris Never Ends | Anagrama, 2004; Seix Barral, 2013; PRH/DeBolsillo, 2014
Montano’s Malady | Anagrama, 2002; Seix Barral, 2012; PRH/DeBolsillo, 2013
Bartleby & Co | Anagrama, 2000; Seix Barral, 2015; PRH/DeBolsillo, 2016
From the Restless City | Alfaguara, 2000
The Vertical Journey | Anagrama, 1999
In Order to End Up with Round Numbers | Pre-Textos, 1997
Strange Way of Life | Anagrama, 1997; PRH/DeBolsillo, 2013
A Long Way from Veracruz | Anagrama, 1995; PRH/DeBolsillo, 2011
Invented memories | Anagrama, 1994; Compactos, 2007
Exemplary Suicides | Anagrama, 1991; PRH/DeBolsillo, 2015
A House For Ever | Anagrama, 1988 / Compactos, 2002
A Brief History of Portable Literature | Anagrama, 1985; PRH-DeBolsillo, 2015
Imposture | Anagrama, 1984
An Enlightened Murderess | Tusquets, 1977 / Lengua de Trapo, 1996 / Lumen, illustrated edition, 2005