Overview

Quarantine, a novel by one of Spain’s most provocative writers, recounts the forty days in which, according to Islamic tradition, the soul wanders between death and eternity, still in possession of a tenuous, dreamlike body. After the unexpected death of a friend, the narrator—a writer like Goytisolo—follows her in his imagination into this otherworld where all kinds of implausible (or are they?) things occur. Meanwhile, television and radio report the 40-day war in the Persian Gulf, and images of war’s destruction mingle with the narrator’s vivid imagination of the torments of the underworld. Simultaneously, the narrator is writing the novel we are reading, for writing itself is a kind of quarantine where the writer withdraws from the world to wander in the otherworld of the imagination. Quarantine is thus both an exploration of the human condition and an investigation of the writing process. It celebrates friendship and denounces war with equal force, and despite the grim themes is filled with humor, shocking surprises, playful language, and love.

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9781564780447

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A challenging work by one of the giants of Spanish literature. -- Library Journal

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"Ne a Barcelone, en 1931, intellectuel engage, oppose au franquisme, Juan Goytisolo s'est tres tot exile a Paris. Aujourd'hui installe a Marrakech, il est devenu un critique implacable de la civilisation occidentale. Auteur d'une quinzaine de romans et de nombreux essais, il a recu, en 1985, le prix Europalia pour l'ensemble de son uvre, en 2002 le prix Octavio Paz, en 2004 le prix Juan Rulfo de litterature latino-americaine et caribeenne, et en novembre 2008 le prestigieux Prix national des Lettres espagnoles.Photo: Circulo de Lectores. Monica Waitzfelder has directed opera at the Paris National Opera, the Theatre du Chatelet, and other French and international venues. Serge Klarsfeld is one of the foremost historians on the fate of the Jews in France during World War II. He has published a dozen books on the subject, including ""French Children of the Holocaust: A Memorial"" and ""Remembering Georgy: Letters from the House of Izieu. ""Peter Bush is vice president of the International Federation of Translators, and has won numerous awards for his translations."

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