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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.

Articles Available Online


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...

sweet sweet agency   the candy here is hard & filled & there is nothing i love more than to be treasured if nobody’s watching i just do nothing: lie down don’t hardly breathe, keep my face in careful stillness not to crease its cute forgettability the world is full of edible munchkins & it is my life’s work to work out how to stay creamy on the inside, how not to sour myself up with little nips of this or that or otherwise cut holes in myself thru which to be seen i must learn to love what i cannot know: the wide bleached anus on a porn blog, the insane demands of toddlers, the desire for moderation or slimness of affection, the reasons lovers leave, the trash my cat brings back, the crack of footsteps in the woods at night, why the killer kills i learn it all the hard way but fwiw i would never snap the rabbit’s neck again i would rewind i would keep it every time     honey lamb   don’t remember going downstairs saying sorry or nevermind just the moment of waking not knowing if it’s dusk or dawn sweating like a hothouse flower red & wet & pulled up from under & gasping steeped & steaming like a teabag & drunk on sleep & beer & sadness blue & dewy as a hothouse flower & the white white vodka crouching neat as a bullet low inside me & burning light like a living laser & i feed it – milk & bread & honey & lamb – until i’m sticky as an ant & shining like a hothouse flower thrumming with the urgent clag of honey blood across my chest in uneven lubbing – my vodka heart trembles like a chihuahua & bruises break across my skin all purple & yellow as hothouse flowers & the white hot vodka stars at dusk & dawn glitter inside me i am beautiful as a hothouse flower when i turn myself on i light up in twinkling points between the milky bones of my ribs & pelvis & all the bulbs i planted in my fat hot head burst into bright flowers through my eyes & my teeth bleat like a lamb & i spark myself up into a column of coloured light & fire

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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poetry

September 2016

Two Poems

Daisy Lafarge

poetry

September 2016

siphoning   habitual catalogue of the day, intro ft. blossom fallen from a gated property and crisping on the...

fiction

January 2014

Hagoromo

Paul Griffiths

fiction

January 2014

for the spirit of Jonathan Harvey   There was a fisherman, who lived in a village on a great...

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August 2017

What Makes A Gallery Programme?

Pac Pobric

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August 2017

Of his art dealer, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Pablo Picasso once wondered, ‘What would have become of us if Kahnweiler hadn’t...

 

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