Never Any End to Paris - by Enrique Vila-Matas (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A masterclass in irony, Never Any End to Paris presents itself as a lecture given by the author on a return visit to Paris. The author, who is a stand-in for a young Enrique Vila-Matas, revisits his memories as a young man living in Marguerite Duras's garret and trying to write his first novel, obsessing over the works of Ernest Hemingway as he does so. When he asks his famous landlord for advice on how to write a novel, she writes him a 13-point list, which he proceeds to carry in his pocket, consulting regularly. With no shortage of influences, from Georges Perec, Samuel Beckett, and W.G. Sebald, to Rimbaud and Mallarmé, primarily it's Hemingway's account of Paris that guides him: "And what was I doing in Duras's garret? Well, basically trying to live a writer's life like the one Hemingway recounts in A Moveable Feast."

About the Author

Enrique Vila-Matas was born in Barcelona in 1948, and is the author of more than twenty works of fiction, including Bartleby & Co, Never Any End to Paris, Dublinesque, Mac's Problem (finalist for the International Man Booker), The Illogic of Kassel, and Vampire in Love. He is a Knight of the Legion of Honor from France and has won the prize city of Barcelona and the Romulo Gallegos (2001), the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger and Fernando Aguirre-Libralire (2002), the Herralde prize, the National Critics, the Prix Medicis-étranger, the prize of Critics Circle Chile (2003), the Premio Internazionale Ennio Flaiano (2006), José Manuel Lara Foundation Award 2006, the prize of the Royal Spanish Academy 2006. In September 2007 he won the literary prize Elsa Morante Scrittori del Mondo, which is awarded "to an important foreign author."

Anne McLean studied history in London, Ontario, and literary translation in London, England, and now lives in Toronto, where she translates Latin American and Spanish novels, short stories, memoirs, and other writings by authors including Julio Cortázar, Gabriel García Márquez, Javier Cercas, Juan Gabriel Vásquez, and Héctor Abad.