Mr. Vila-Matas shows that the reasons for (and the consequences of) not writing fiction can, in a funny way, be almost as rich and complicated as fiction itself.
A touching account of facing down mortality with a passion and an obsession for literature.
The accent of Vila-Matas's project falls on an accomplished romanticism conscious of its historicity, an artist-worship taken to maturity that concurrently absents and introduces itself into the work at every moment.
The Spanish novelist is a master of that problematic enterprise of literature: the death-defying highwire act of telling the truth through lies, of invoking reality through fiction.
Vila-Matas's wildly original novels are all investigations of whether or not originality in fiction is still possible; every nook and cranny of literary history is explored and interrogated, the margin of every great novel frantically scribbled in.--Morten Høi Jensen
Dublinesque is a pleasure to read...hugely entertaining.-- (06/16/2012)
One of the most pleasurable and joyous novels of the year.-- (06/16/2012)
Vila-Matas has brought home a fine specimen of that most endangered of intellectual species, the literary publisher.-- (06/16/2012)