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Book Cover for: The Magician of Vienna, Sergio Pitol

The Magician of Vienna

Sergio Pitol

"We can read The Magician of Vienna not just as a work of literature but as one of the Holy Books in which we store humanity's imaginary." -- Mario Bellatin, author of Beauty Salon

The heartbreaking final volume in Sergio Pitol's groundbreaking memoir-essay-fiction-hybrid "Trilogy of Memory" finds Pitol boldly and passionately weaving fiction and autobiography together to tell of his life lived through literature as a way to stave off the advancement of a degenerative neurological condition causing him to lose the use of language. Fiction invades autobiography--and vice versa--as Pitol writes to forestall the advancement of degenerative memory loss.

"Pitol's writing - the way he constructs sentences, inflects Spanish, twists meanings and stresses particular words - reflects the multiplicity of languages he has read and embraced. Reading him is like reading through the layers of many languages at once." -- Valeria Luiselli, author of The Story of My Teeth

Sergio Pitol, the greatest living Mexican writer, winner of the Juan Rulfo and Cervantes prizes, is profoundly influential to the current generation of Spanish-language writers, including Valeria Luiselli, Enrique Vila-Matas, and Yuri Herrera.


Book Details

  • Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
  • Publish Date: Apr 25th, 2017
  • Pages: 320
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.20in - 5.20in - 0.70in - 0.75lb
  • EAN: 9781941920480
  • Categories: Diaries & JournalsCaribbean & Latin AmericanEssays

About the Author

Sergio Pitol Demeneghi is one of Mexico's most acclaimed writers, born in the city of Puebla in 1933. He studied law and philosophy in Mexico City. He is renowned for his intellectual career in both the field of literary creation and translation, and is renowned for his work in the promotion of Mexican culture abroad, which he achieved during his long service as a cultural attaché in Mexican embassies and consulates across the globe. He has lived perpetually on the run: he was a student in Rome, a translator in Beijing and Barcelona, a university professor in Xalapa and Bristol, and a diplomat in Warsaw, Budapest, Paris, Moscow and Prague. Pitol is a contemporary of the most famous authors of the Latin American "Boom," and began publishing novels, stories, criticism, and translations in the 1960s. In recognition of the importance of his entire canon of work, Pitol was awarded the two most important prizes in the Spanish language world: the Juan Rulfo Prize in 1999 (now known as the FIL Literary Award in Romance Languages), and in 2005 he won the Cervantes Prize, the most prestigious literary prize in the Spanish language world, often called the "Spanish language Nobel." Deep Vellum will publish Pitol's Trilogy of Memory in full in 2014-2015 (The Art of Flight; The Journey; The Magician of Vienna), marking the first appearance of any of Pitol's books in English.

George Henson is a literary translator and assistant professor of translation at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey. His translations include Cervantes Prize laureate Sergio Pitol's Trilogy of Memory, The Heart of the Artichoke by fellow Cervantes recipient Elena Poniatowska, and Luis Jorge Boone's Cannibal Nights. His translations have appeared variously in The Paris Review, The Literary Review, , BOMB, The Guardian, Asymptote, and Flash Fiction International. In addition, he is a contributing editor for World Literature Today and the translation editor for its sister publication Latin American Literature Today.

More books by Sergio Pitol

Book Cover for: Taming the Divine Heron, Sergio Pitol
Book Cover for: The Love Parade, Sergio Pitol
Book Cover for: The Art of Flight, Sergio Pitol
Book Cover for: The Journey, Sergio Pitol
Book Cover for: Mephisto's Waltz: Selected Short Stories, Sergio Pitol
Book Cover for: Trilogia de la Memoria -V2*, Sergio Pitol
Book Cover for: Domar a la Divina Garza, Sergio Pitol

Praise for this book

"Pitol is a writer of another kind: his importance lies on the page, in the creation of his own world, in his ability to shed light on the world." -- Daniel Saldañntilde;a Paris, author of Among Strange Victims

"Pitol is probably one of Mexico's most culturally complex and composite writers. He is certainly the strangest, most unfathomable and eccentric. . . . [His] voice . . . reverberates beyond the margins of his books." -- Valeria Luiselli, author of Faces in the Crowd

"Reading him, one has the impression . . . of being before the greatest writer in the Spanish language in our time." -- Enrique Vila-Matas

"A gorgeous, insight into literature, history, and a life lived through words. Sergio Pitol is one of Mexico's greatest authors." -- Mark Haber, Brazos Bookstore (Houston, Texas)

"Reading Sergio Pitol will make any serious writer want to write--and write better. . . . In Pitol's life and his writing, neither images nor thoughts flow naturally and automatically to their logical associations." -- 3: AM Magazine

"Sergio Pitol is a legendary Mexican writer, whose ability and fame are best explained by noting that he has won both the Herralde and Cervantes Prizes." -- Tony Malone, Tony's Reading List

"Sergio Pitol is not only our best active storyteller, he is also the bravest renovator of our literature."-- Álvaro Enrigue, Letras Libres

"The Art of Flight has none of the obsessive, Proustian detail of Knausgaard, or the metafiction of Lerner. It resists the light-heartedness of Bolaño's depictions of youth and escapades, and the moroseness of Hemingway. Instead, it resembles a cloudy gemstone: at once glimmering and opaque, layered and precise." -- Rosie Clarke, Music & Literature

"The Art of Flight is an homage to the value of stepping out of your comfort zone, to the difficult imperative of staying true to yourself, to living a life consumed with an intense quest for knowledge and perfection, and above all, a paean to a love of life and the power of books." -- Jennifer Smart, The Dallas Observer

"A dense, fascinating world, both familiar and strange, a world where different times, spaces, texts, journeys, ideas, and memories fuse and re-create one another." -- Rafael Lemus, Review: Literature and Arts of the Americas

"The Art of Flight reads like a long overdue celebration for a timeless art form that is constantly changing, constantly reinventing itself through the years, but rest assured, will never die." -- Aaron Westerman, Typographical Era

"The reflections on Pitol's life as a writer are thoroughly enjoyable and, at time[s], gripping." -- Tony Messenger, Messenger's Booker

"The Art of Flight is a book bursting with energy and curiosity. It is a collection of observations, set of diaries, travelogue and much more. It defies categorisation and cannot be summarised. Only experienced." -- Tulika Bahadur, On Art and Aesthetics

"Pitol is an inspiring teacher, and the experience of reading The Journey is akin to conversing with an admired professor, after which one hastily jots down the myriad writers and books mentioned in hopes of retroactively catching up on missed references. It feels like an honor as well to stumble on notes Pitol makes for future novels--as if we're trusted confidants." -- Anne Posten, Words without Borders

"Told in intelligent and warm prose, Pitol once again shows the reader the profound importance of literature and travel in living a meaningful life. Bursting with wisdom and m