Marcelo, a clerk in a Barcelona office who might himself have emerged from a novel by Kafka, inhabits a world peopled by characters in literature. He once wrote a novel about the impossibility of love, but since then he has written nothing. He has, in short, become a 'Bartleby', so named after the c[...]

Trying to be Ernest Hemingway is never easy. After reading A Moveable Feast, aspiring novelist Enrique Vila-Matas moves to Paris to be closer to his literary idol, Ernest Hemingway. Surrounded by the writers, artists and eccentrics of '70s Parisian cafe culture, he dresses in black, buys two pairs o[...]

One night, a renowned and now retired literary publisher has a vivid dream that takes place in Dublin, a city he s never visited. The central scene of the dream is a funeral in the era of Ulysses. The publisher would give anything to know if an unidentified character in his dream is the great author[...]

An author (a version of Vila-Matas himself) presents a short history of a secret society, the Shandies, who are obsessed with the concept of portable literature. The society is entirely imagined, but in this rollicking, intellectually playful book, its members include writers and artists like Marcel[...]

Part picaresque novel, part intimate diary, part memoir, part philosophical musings, this work serves as a labyrinth in which writers cross endlessly surprising paths, while the author's protagonist leads the reader on a journey from European cities to the Azores and the Chilean port of Valparaiso.[...]

"Maria Lima Mendes hat er geliebt, der Erzähler Marcelo, der vor 25 Jahren seinen Roman veröffentlichte und seither ein trauriges Dasein als Büroangestellter fristet. Er leidet am Bartleby-Syndrom. Wie Robert Walser. Und auch Jerome D. Salinger: ein Bartleby ist ein Schriftsteller, der sich dem S[...]

Samuel Riba drev länge ett ansett förlag i Barcelona, men ett personligt sammanbrott tvingade honom till en för tidig pensionering. Utan sina författare och sina böcker vet han inte längre vem han är, och den digitala eran tycks inte ha någon plats över för en gammal beläst förläggare. [...]