A01=Cesar Aira
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
argentina
Author_Cesar Aira
automatic-update
B06=Chris Andrews
books
buenos aires
Category1=Fiction
Category=FA
Category=FB
Category=FK
Category=FKW
Category=FM
Category=FMM
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_bestseller
eq_fantasy
eq_fiction
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
Language_English
literature
magic
novella
PA=Available
Price_€10 to €20
PS=Active
softlaunch
writers block
Product details
- ISBN 9780811228893
- Weight: 245g
- Dimensions: 160 x 239mm
- Publication Date: 27 Sep 2022
- Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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A certain writer ("past sixty, enjoying 'a certain renown'") strolls through the old book market in a Buenos Aires park: "My Sunday walk through the market, repeated over so many years, was part of my general fantasizing about books." Unfortunately, he is suffering from writer's block. However, that proves to be the least of our hero's problems. In the market, he fails to avoid the insufferable boor Ovando—"a complete loser" but a "man supremely full of himself: Conceit was never less justified." And yet, is Ovando a master magician? Can he turn sugar cubes into pure gold? And can our protagonist decline the offer Ovando proposes granting him absolute power if the writer never in his life reads another book? And is his publisher also a great magician? And the writer's wife?
Only César Aira could have cooked up this witch's potion (and only he would plop in phantom Mont Blanc pens as well as fearsome crocodiles from the banks of the Nile)—a brew bubbling over with the question: where does literature end and magic begin?
César Aira was born in Coronel Pringles, Argentina in 1949, and has lived in Buenos Aires since 1967. He won the 2021 Formentor Prize and was shortlisted for the 2015 Booker International Prize.
The poet and translator Chris Andrews has won the Valle Inclan Prize and the French-American Translation Prize for his work.
