Dublinesque
  • Published: 1 August 2013
  • ISBN: 9780099555841
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $26.99

Dublinesque

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From one of Spain's greatest writers, a witty, moving novel about art, life, death and James Joyce.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE INDEPENDENT FOREIGN FICTION PRIZE

'A writer who has no equal in the contemporary landscape of the Spanish novel.' Roberto Bolaño

Samuel Riba is about to turn 60. A successful publisher in Barcelona, he is increasingly prone to attacks of anxiety and, looking for distraction, he concocts a spur-of-the-moment trip to Dublin, a city he has never visited but once dreamed about.

He sets off for Dublin on the pretext of honouring James Joyce's Ulysses on Bloomsday. But as he and his friends gather in the cemetery to give their orations, a mysterious figure in a mackintosh resembling Joyce's protégé Samuel Beckett hovers in the background. Is it Beckett, or is it the writer of genius that Riba has spent his whole career trying, and failing, to find?
  • Published: 1 August 2013
  • ISBN: 9780099555841
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $26.99
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About the author

Enrique Vila-Matas

Enrique Vila-Matas is widely considered to be one of Spain's most important contemporary novelists. His work has been translated into 30 languages and has won numerous international literary prizes, including the Herralde Prize, the Prix Médicis étranger and the Premio Rómulo Gallegos. Vila-Matas' books have been longlisted (Montano) and shortlisted (Dublinesque) for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and Never Any End to Paris was a finalist for the US Best Translated Book Award.

portrait photo of Enrique Vila-Matas

Also by Enrique Vila-Matas

Mac and His Problem
The Illogic of Kassel
Never Any End to Paris
Montano
Bartleby And Co
See all

Praise for Dublinesque

One of the most pleasurable and joyous novels of the year

John Self, Independent

A brilliant, funny novel; an expertly woven tapestry of literary allusions. Enrique Vila-Matas has created a masterpiece

Jacqueline McCarrick, 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

An exquisite and original book in which literature does not make us think about life: it is life

Le Magazine Littéraire

The masterpiece of one of Spain's leading writers

Cara Magazine

Vila Matas's novel is full of spectres, absences, near-misses. Like Becket, it is apocalypse without the drama. Dublinesque is a postmodern meditation on a high modernist text, full of cryptic crosses between fiction and reality

Terry Eagleton, London Review of Books

A true literary treat

El Mundo

An extremely clever book, an obvious affection response to Joyce, to Ulysses , to all serious literature

Kevin Breathnach, Totally Dublin