A masterpiece of metafiction, Mac and His Problem is Enrique Vila-Matas’s testament to the power and playfulness of great literature

Mac is not writing a novel. He is writing a diary no one will read. Aged over 60, Mac is a beginner, a novice, an apprentice delighted by the themes of repetition and falsification, humbly armed with an encyclopaedic knowledge of literature. Soon, Mac begins to notice that life is exhibiting strange literary overtones and imitating fragments of plot. As he sizzles in the Barcelona heatwave, he becomes ever more immersed in literature, haunted by death but alive with the pleasure of writing.

 

Longlisted
The International Booker Prize 2020
Published by
Harvill Secker
Publication date

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Enrique Vila-Matas

Enrique Vila-Matas

About the Author

Enrique Vila-Matas is widely considered to be one of Spain's most important contemporary novelists
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Margaret Jull Costa

About the Translator

Margaret Elisabeth Jull Costa has translated the works of many Spanish and Portuguese writers. In 2014, she was awarded an OBE for services to literature
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Sophie Hughes

Sophie Hughes

About the Translator

Sophie Hughes is a literary translator from Spanish and Italian, and is the most nominated translator in the International Booker Prize’s 10-year history
More about Sophie Hughes