Mac and His Problem
Written by Enrique Vila-Matas
Translated by Margaret Jull Costa, Sophie Hughes
- Original language:
- Spanish
- Longlisted
- The International Booker Prize 2020
- Published by Harvill Secker
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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.
Enrique Vila-Matas
Enrique Vila-Matas is widely considered to be one of Spain's most important contemporary novelists
More about Enrique Vila-Matas Margaret Jull Costa
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 is a literary translator from Spanish and Italian, and is the most nominated translator in the International Booker Prize’s 10-year history
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