Enrique Vila-Matas (born 31 March 1948 inBarcelona) is a Spanish writer.[1]
Vila-Matas has written several award-winning books that mix genres and has been branded as one of the most original and prominent writers in the Spanish language.[2][1] He is frequently mentioned among the favourites to win theNobel Prize in Literature.[3][4]
He is a founding Knight of the Order of Finnegans, a group which meets inDublin every year on 16 June to honourJames Joyce and his novelUlysses.
Enrique Vila-Matas was born inBarcelona in 1948 to Enrique, who worked in the real-estate business, and Tayo Vila-Mata. When he was twelve, he began writing and later studied law and journalism.[1]
In 1968, he became editor of the film magazineFotogramas. In 1970, he directed two short films,Todos los jóvenes tristes (All the Sad Youngsters) andFin de verano (The End of Summer).[5]
In 1971, he did his military service inMelilla, where in the back room of a military-supplies store, he wrote his first novel, Mujer en el espejo contemplando el paisaje. On his return to Barcelona, he worked as a film critic for the magazinesBocaccio andDestino.[5]
Between 1974 and 1976, he lived inParis in agarret he rented from the writerMarguerite Duras, before returning to Barcelona.[6]
Vila-Matas published his first novel, written as a single uninterrupted sentence, in 1973. While living in Paris he wrote his second novel,La asesina ilustrada. His third and fourth books,Al sur de los párpados andNunca voy al cine, appeared in 1980 and 1982. With the publication of his bookHistoria abreviada de la literatura portátil in 1985, Vila-Matas began to be recognised.[5][6]
He then published the short-story collectionsUna casa para siempre,Suicidios ejemplares andHijos sin hijos;Recuerdos inventados is an anthology of his best stories. His following works were novels, includingLejos de Veracruz,Extraña forma de vida,El viaje vertical,Bartleby & Co. andMontano's Malady, among others. In 1992, he published a collection of articles and literary essays under the titleEl viajero más lento, which he followed up in 1995 withEl traje de los domingos. Other books containing literary essays includePara acabar entendamos nada (2003, Chile),El viento ligero en Parma (2004, Mexico; re-published in Spain, 2008), andAnd Pasavento ya no estaba (2008, Argentina).Never Any End to Paris (2003) tells of his Parisian experiences. In 2005,Doctor Pasavento came out, a book about the subject of disappearance and "the difficulty of being nobody". This book closes his meta-literary trilogy on the pathologies of writing (Bartleby, Montano andPasavento).
In September 2007, Vila-Matas returned to the short story, publishingExploradores del abismo withAnagrama. In 2008, cameDietario voluble, in which he opts more than ever for a formula that erases the borders between fiction, essay and biography. The book is a literary diary or a kind of guide that allows the reader to glimpse the work's internal structure and combines experiences of reading and life, personal memory, and an essayist's literary ideas. It was followed byElla era Hemingway / No soy Auster, two short texts published byAlfabia in theCuadernos Collection.
In 2010, he returned once more to the novel withDublinesca, a book that deals with a publisher in crisis, and has since published several novels includingKassel no invita a la lógica (2014,The Illogic of Kassel),Marienbad electrique (2015) andMac y su contratiempo (2017,Mac and His Problem), as well as two short-story collections. Described as "a masterpiece ofmetafiction", the English translation ofMac and His Problem was longlisted for the 2020International Booker Prize.[7]
Vila-Matas' books mixes different genres and typically blurs the boundaries betweenessay andfiction in a style that the author himself has defined as "narrated thought".Metafiction,intertextuality,humour,wit,irony andautobiographical self-reflection are integral parts of his writing that has been described as "an intense and witty textual delirium that has made him one of the most original and celebrated writers in the Spanish language."[5][6]
Vila-Matas is a knight of the FrenchLegion of Honour, and has an honorary doctorate from theUniversity of the Andes, Venezuela. He has won the Ciudad de Barcelona prize and the VenezuelanRómulo Gallegos Prize (2001); the Meilleur Livre Etranger prize and the Fernando Aguirre-Libralire prize (2002); the Herralde prize, the Nacional de la Crítica prize, the Medicis-Etranger Prize, the Círculo de Críticos de Chile prize (2003), the Internazionale Ennio Flaiano prize (2006), the Fundación José Manuel Lara prize 2006, and the Real Academia Española prize 2006.
In 2007, he won the Elsa Morante literary prize in the category Scrittori del Mondo, which each year honours a great foreign writer. In 2009, he received the Internazionale Mondello prize for the novelDottor Pasavento, translated into Italian by Feltrinelli. In 2011, he received the Bottari Lattes Grinzane Prize (Italy) the Prix Jean Carriere (France) and the Leteo Award (Spain) forDublinesque. In 2012, he received the Argital Award Bilbao City forAir of Dylan and thePremio Gregor von Rezzori for the Italian translation ofExploradores del abismo (Esploratori dell’abisso).
He is a founding member of the Order of Finnegans,[10] which takes its name from a pub inDalkey, Ireland, although there are those who believe it also comes from James Joyce's last novel,Finnegans Wake. The knights of the Order of Finnegans must venerate James Joyce's novelUlysses and, if possible, attendBloomsday, June 16, each year inDublin on the sixteenth of June. This is a long day that culminates, at dusk, at theMartello tower inSandycove (where the novel begins) with participants reading sections fromUlysses and then walking to Finnegan's pub in the neighbouring village of Dalkey. The other four founding members areEduardo Lago, Jordi Soler,Antonio Soler and Malcolm Otero Barral.
His most recent novel isMontevideo, ametafiction work which reflects on writing and interconnected hotel rooms, such as one inMontevideo at Cervantes hotel that has been previously mentioned in the two short stories byAdolfo Bioy Casares andJulio Cortázar La puerta condenada.
His work has so far been translated into thirty languages, including French, English, German, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Arabic, Greek, Serbian, Swedish, Dutch, Hungarian, Hebrew, Turkish, Norwegian, Romanian, Polish, Korean, Catalan, Slovenian, Czech, Bulgarian, Finnish, Danish, Lithuanian, Slovakian, Mandarin, Portuguese and Croatian.
El viajero más lento (Anagrama, 1992. Edición aumentada:El viajero más lento. El arte de no terminar nada, Seix Barral, 2011).
El traje de los domingos (Huerga & Fierro, 1995).
Para acabar con los números redondos (Pre-Textos, 1997).
Desde la ciudad nerviosa (Alfaguara, 2000. Edición aumentada: Alfaguara, 2004).
Extrañas notas de laboratorio (Ediciones El otro el mismo/CELARG, 2003. Edición aumentada: Ediciones El otro, el mismo, 2007).
Aunque no entendamos nada (J. C. Sáez editor, 2003).
El viento ligero en Parma (México, Sexto Piso, 2004. Madrid, Sexto Piso, 2008).
Ella era Hemingway / No soy Auster (Ediciones Alfabia, 2008).
Y Pasavento ya no estaba (Mansalva, 2008).
Una vida absolutamente maravillosa. Ensayos selectos (Mondadori/De Bolsillo, 2011).
Fuera de aquí. Conversaciones con André Gabastou (Galaxia Gutenberg, 2013). (Vila-Matas, pile et face, rencontre avec André Gabastou. Paris: Argol éditions, 2010).
Andres-Suárez, Irene y Ana Casas (eds.)Enrique Vila-Matas. Madrid: Arco/ Libros, 2007 (Col. «Cuadernos de Narrativa»).
Heredia, Margarita (ed.)Vila-Matas portátil. Un escritor ante la crítica. Barcelona: Candaya, 2007. [Includes a DVD:Café con Shandy (30’), a talk between Vila-Matas andJuan Villoro].
Salas, Lisbeth.Infinitamente serio. Caracas: La cámara escrita, 2009.
Pozuelo Yvancos, José María.Figuraciones del yo en la narrativa. Javier Marías y E. Vila-Matas. Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid, Junta de Castilla y León, 2010. (Cátedra Miguel Delibes).
Ríos Baeza, Felipe A. (ed.)Enrique Vila-matas. Los espejos de la ficción. México: Ediciones Eón/Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 2012.
Badia, Alain, Anne-Lise Blanc y Mar García (eds.)Geographies du vertige dans l'oeuvre d'Enrique Vila-Matas. Perpignan: Presses universitaires de Perpignan, 2013.
Carrera, Guillermo.Crítica portátil. La estructura ausente en Doctor Pasavento (una aproximación narratológica). Puebla: Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, 2013.
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