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Book Cover for: Bartleby & Co., Enrique Vila-Matas

Bartleby & Co.

Enrique Vila-Matas

Reader Score

78%

78% of readers

recommend this book

In Bartleby & Co., an enormously enjoyable novel, Enrique Vila-Matas tackles the theme of silence in literature: the writers and non-writers who, like the scrivener Bartleby of the Herman Melville story, in answer to any question or demand, replies: "I would prefer not to." Addressing such "artists of refusal" as Robert Walser, Robert Musil, Arthur Rimbaud, Marcel Duchamp, Herman Melville, and J. D. Salinger, Bartleby & Co. could be described as a meditation: a walking tour through the annals of literature. Written as a series of footnotes (a non-work itself), Bartleby embarks on such questions as why do we write, why do we exist? The answer lies in the novel itself: told from the point of view of a hermetic hunchback who has no luck with women, and is himself unable to write, Bartleby is utterly engaging, a work of profound and philosophical beauty.

Book Details

  • Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
  • Publish Date: Apr 1st, 2007
  • Pages: 178
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 7.99in - 5.28in - 0.54in - 0.50lb
  • EAN: 9780811216982
  • Categories: • Literary• Hispanic & Latino - General

About the Author

Vila-Matas, Enrique: - ENRIQUE VILA-MATAS was born in Barcelona. He has received countless prizes and written numerous award-winning novels, including Bartleby & Co., Montano's Malady, Never Any End to Paris, and Dublinesque.
Dunne, Jonathan: - Jonathan Dunne was born in Kingston-upon-Thames, England, in 1968 and studied Classics at Oxford University. He is director of the publishing house Small Stations Press. He translates from Bulgarian, Catalan, Galician and Spanish into English.

Praise for this book

"Modern Spain's best writer among a growing sect of fanatics scattered around the world: from Estocolmo to Veracruz, from Paris to Cabo Verde, from Lisbon to Prague, from Varsovia to Buenos Aires."