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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...

INSERT: Little Pistorius in a Sleevelet of Mirrors A ballet performed by the corps du ballet of S——– to the music of Satie’s Embryons desséchés in the middle of the opera, Pistorius Rex, & in the very womb of the theatre which cannot be located on earth NO-OUVERTURE: But an interlude, a Quaalude, under Europa, an etude, a vein where the scholar can ride a pen assassination, an arbour assignation in which a nymph snaps her neck and goes cyanic like a cygnet, her pupils unspooled, and a poet hangs his lyre amid the branches lyre-stage death of the author wearing a gold noise-cancelling machine for a crown and golden jump rope for a noose getting high, lying down like a jock on the highway with his hands in the curls of another jock because they saw it in a movie: how to love and bury their hands in each other: androphiles on the dividing line remember when the jocks all extinguished themselves in an Illiad of trust, magic, desire and idiocy? – Our opera’s got too much of these already! – so bring on the ballet already! TABLEAUX MORTES: Ahem The wealthy men of S——– would like to see their mistresses’ dinner-plate tutus and powdered thighs, teasing calves, ankles so easily cocked between thumb and finger Leave the slippers on, sister Tiny spoons for caviar and cocaine But the bone spoon is the best spoon Occiptal dishlet, better than Spode or a krater of the moon Place to sip Spores and spicules Dear eyebone! China white! Knockout punch! Fontanel! Ahem As patrons of the Opera, these men demand more ballets per Opera They are refugee princes, pencil manufacturers, salt-peter synthecisers, clockwork organisers, and beaver-pelt hats purveyors And also the purveyors of ringtones, Glocks, and daytrading software They sit in stalls and boxes with chains hanging down their chests because they are also mayors & brewers from New Glarus

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...

READ NEXT

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December 2011

Egyptian Revolution: Bloody Wednesday (2 February 2011)

Omar Robert Hamilton

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December 2011

Almost one year on from the first battles in Tahrir Square, Egypt’s future remains uncertain. Many Egyptians believe that,...

fiction

Issue No. 17

Boom Boom

Clemens Meyer

TR. Katy Derbyshire

fiction

Issue No. 17

You’re flat on your back on the street. And you thought the nineties were over.   And they nearly...

fiction

June 2017

Turksib

Lutz Seiler

TR. Alexander Booth

fiction

June 2017

The jolts of the tracks were stronger now and came at irregular intervals. With my arms outstretched, I held...

 

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