Tertulia Logo
Sign upLog In
Cart Icon0
Cart Icon0
The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: On the Edge, Rafael Chirbes

On the Edge

Rafael Chirbes

Paperback
Regular price$16.95With free membership trial$8.4850% off your first book+ Free shipping
Currently out of stock. Place a backorder.

Do you recommend this book?

Yes!

No

Critic Reviews

Good

Based on 4 reviews on

BookMarks logo
On the Edge opens with the discovery of a rotting corpse in the marshes on the outskirts of Olba, Spain--a town wracked by despair after the burst of the economic bubble, and a microcosm of a world of defeat, debt, and corruption. Stuck in this town is Esteban--his small factory bankrupt, his investments stolen by a "friend," and his unloved father, a mute invalid, entirely his personal burden. Much of the novel unfolds in Esteban's raw and tormented monologues. But other voices resound from the wreckage--soloists stepping forth from the choir--and their words, sharp as knives, crowd their terse, hypnotic monologues of ruin, prostitution, and loss.

Chirbes alternates this choir of voices with a majestic third-person narration, injecting a profound and moving lyricism and offering the hope that a new vitality can emerge from the putrid swamps. On the Edge, even as it excoriates, pulsates with robust life, and its rhythmic, torrential style marks the novel as an indelible masterpiece.

Book Details

  • Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
  • Publish Date: Jan 25th, 2016
  • Pages: 464
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.00in - 5.30in - 1.10in - 0.90lb
  • EAN: 9780811222846
  • Categories: • Literary• Psychological• Political

More books to explore

Book Cover for: Creation Lake, Rachel Kushner
Book Cover for: The Candy House, Jennifer Egan
Book Cover for: I'm a Fan, Sheena Patel
Book Cover for: Sabbath's Theater: National Book Award Winner, Philip Roth
Book Cover for: Crooked Seeds, Karen Jennings
Book Cover for: The Singularities, John Banville
Book Cover for: An Island, Karen Jennings
Book Cover for: A Book of American Martyrs, Joyce Carol Oates
Book Cover for: Island City, Laura Adamczyk
Book Cover for: American Woman, Susan Choi
Book Cover for: The Bostonians: In Two Volumes, Henry James
Book Cover for: Skin Elegies, Lance Olsen
Book Cover for: Lost Words, Nicola Gardini
Book Cover for: NADA, Jean-Patrick Manchette
Book Cover for: The Information, Martin Amis

About the Author

Chirbes, Rafael: - Rafael Chirbes (1949-2015) wrote ten novels and received the National Prize for Literature and the Critics Prize for On the Edge. ABC named him "the best writer of the twenty-first century in Spain."
Miles, Valerie: - Valerie Miles, an editor, writer, translator, and professor, is the cofounding editor of the literary journal Granta in Spanish.
Costa, Margaret Jull: -

Margaret Jull Costa, who has translated Javier Marías and José Saramago, lives in England.

More books by Rafael Chirbes

Book Cover for: En La Orilla -V2*, Rafael Chirbes
Book Cover for: Cremation, Rafael Chirbes
Book Cover for: Diarios. a Ratos Perdidos 5 Y 6, Rafael Chirbes
Book Cover for: Paris-Austerlitz -V2*, Rafael Chirbes
Book Cover for: Diarios. a Ratos Perdidos 3 Y 4, Rafael Chirbes
Book Cover for: Año Que Nevo En Valencia, El, Rafael Chirbes

What people are saying

Critics’ reviews

Praise for this book

Utterly convincing in its psychological details, but also memorable for the beauty of its writing and rhythms.--Colm To´ibi´n
On the Edge is masterful, a centrifugal novel with sentences like sticky tentacles that clutch onto readers and suck them into a swirling, tempestuous, pulsating center.--Valerie Miles
This is the great novel of the crisis. The corrosive voice of Rafael Chirbes paints a portrait of a universe of unemployment and disappointment--the long hangover that follows the party of corruption.-- "El Pai´s"
On the Edge, Chirbes's masterpiece, arrives as a message in a bottle among all the cans, rusting appliances, and tangled tackle. The fumes of the lagoon mix with the lingering sulfur of the Atocha railway-station bombing; the Spanish economy has all but collapsed. Who, or what, is to blame? Chirbes's novel accuses everyone.--Joshua Cohen "Harper's"
A moving, densely detailed portrait of people without hope.-- "Kirkus Reviews"
Rafael Chirbes's On the Edge is a novel for our time.--Norman Rush "New York Review of Books"
Chirbes, one of Spain's premier writers, is at his best when fully immersed, as he is in this novel. If Proust and an Old Testament prophet had collaborated to write about Spain's recession, it might have been something like the writing here--agonized, dense, full of rage, and difficult to forget.-- "Publishers Weekly"
Easily one of the year's finest and most important work, Chirbes's ON THE EDGE stands out as a marvel of what fiction is capable of dong (and, oh, that inescapable cover!).--Jeremy Garber "Three Percent"
Rafael Chirbes is one of the greatest European authors of our time.-- "Le Monde"
Literature, as Adorno once said, is a clock that keeps ticking. But it is also the best tool for understanding the world when reality is torn to shreds. Both rules are strictly complied with by great authors. And Rafael Chirbes is one of them.-- "El Mundo"

What people are saying

See more