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Enrique Vila-Matas
Enrique Vila-Matas was born in Barcelona in 1948. His works include Bartleby & Co, Montano, Never Any End to Paris, The Vertical Journey, winner of the Premio Romulo Gallegos, and Dublinesque, which was shortlisted for the 2013 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. 'February 2008' is an excerpt from his novel Dietario Voluble, published by Anagrama in 2008.

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Writers from the Old Days

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Issue No. 13

Enrique Vila-Matas

TR. J. S. Tennant

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Issue No. 13

Augusto Monterroso wrote that sooner or later the Latin American writer faces three possible fates: exile, imprisonment or burial.   I met Roberto Bolaño...

poetry

January 2015

Litanies of an Audacious Rosary

Enrique Vila-Matas

TR. Rosalind Harvey

poetry

January 2015

FEBRUARY 2008   * I’m outraged, but I’ve learned a way of reasoning that quickly defuses my exasperation. This...

‘The Audit’ and ‘Red Bank’ are excerpts from Schweig’s forthcoming book, Take Nothing With You (University of Iowa Press, 2016)   THE AUDIT   Groupwise, busy search Start off your week with some cake   Spatula, buy eggs Butter your kayak with cake Harvard, Washburn My girlfriend’s   son’s graduation party yesterday Blackberry outage Some cake (Investigate)   Harvard, spatula, my girlfriend’s son’s party yesterday Busy search, blackberries   The audit questions, investigates the state of yesterday Question the audit Forkful   of angel A wise group of suits, after delays, never came Harvard, margarine Calling and calling,   today, all the neighbors, utter undress, complete disarray, I propped the door open, which is to say   Washburn, kayak I propped my window with an eyeglass case Butter your kayak, cake       RED BANK   Deaths came out of the blue and the weather complied After, the sound of running water and the girls whose names     are not be mentioned He said my disposition was a fragment He drove one-handed Two rules: No complete lines A little blood in the water       EMPTINESS (CODA)   My brother says he can’t afford the future I’m living above a bakery in the city, and a bar next door There is no time Sometimes I hear music     My lover works a shit job, leaving early, coming back late My brother lives out on the shit great plains and says he can’t afford the future     Here, a storefront called The Essence Of Life is open all night What they sell, I don’t know, always the same guy chain-smoking out front, yelling into his phone     (Sometimes, this is the music) I spend time reading conflicting theories, having doubts I don’t think much about the future There is no time for The Essence Of Life     When my lover comes home hungry, we prepare dinner We take walks out by The Essence of Life, say “hi” to the smoking guy (We know nothing of each other)     My brother knows nothing of the future My mother is making plans for her life At night, over the phone, she says, Tomorrow, I’ll start over Downstairs,     music There is no time We know nothing of The Essence Of Life open all night, lit-up and always empty My brother says he can’t afford the future  

Contributor

August 2014

Enrique Vila-Matas

Contributor

August 2014

Enrique Vila-Matas was born in Barcelona in 1948. His works include Bartleby & Co, Montano, Never Any End to...

Leaving Theories Behind

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Issue No. 9

Enrique Vila-Matas

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Issue No. 9

I. I went to Lyon because an organisation called Villa Fondebrider invited me to give a talk on the relationship between fiction and reality as...

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fiction

Issue No. 19

Once Sublime

Virginie Despentes

TR. Frank Wynne

fiction

Issue No. 19

The music is sick! This guy’s a genius. Always trust Gaëlle. When they first saw him, everyone thought who...

poetry

Issue No. 3

Two Poems

Rebecca Wolff

poetry

Issue No. 3

I approach a purchase adore my children— back away— that they revere ugliness the rainbow bag that holds a...

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February 2012

Stalker, Writer or Professor? Geoff Dyer's Zona and Genre

Rose McLaren

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February 2012

‘So what kind of a writer am I, reduced to writing a summary of a film?’ wonders Geoff Dyer...

 

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