Skip to main content
Thumbnail for Mac and his problem

Mac and his problem

Vila-Matas, Enrique, 1948-2019
Books
Mac is not writing a novel. He is writing a diary, which no one will ever read. At over 60, and recently unemployed, Mac is a beginner, a novice, an apprentice - delighted by the themes of repetition and falsification, and humbly armed with an encyclopaedic knowledge of literature. Mac's wife, Carmen, thinks he is simply wasting his time and in danger of sliding further into depression and idleness. But Mac persists, diligently recording his daily walks through the neighbourhood. It is the hottest summer Barcelona has seen in over 100 years. Soon, despite his best intentions (not to write a novel), Mac begins to notice that life is exhibiting strange literary overtones and imitating fragments of plot. As he sizzles in the heatwave, he becomes ever more immersed in literature - a literature haunted by death but alive with the sheer pleasure of writing.
Main title:
Mac and his problem / Enrique Vila-Matas ; translated by Margaret Jull Costa, Sophie Hughes.
Imprint:
London : Harvill Secker, 2019.
Collation:
224 pages ; 22 cm
Notes:
Translated from the Spanish.
ISBN:
9781787300453 (pbk)
Dewey class:
FICTION
Language:
EnglishSpanish
BRN:
2777954
View my active saved list
0 items in my active saved list