Enrique Vila-Matas

Enrique Vila-Matas is the new literary phenomenon. He has been called the new James Joyce, the Spanish Georges Perec, the son of Juan Marsé, but the title which suits him the best is certainly the 'writer without frontiers'.

It is a definition which better explains his peculiar writing style. Vila-Matas’ books show his ability to combine French literary theories with Irish humour, or writers’ biographies with Spanish geography – especially with the squares and streets of Barcelona.

His enjoyable writing also resides in his insatiable modesty. Although many literary critics and writers, such as Claudio Magris, praise his style and plots, he likes amusing his public by showing a natural and dismissive attitude towards his literary success.

He often says he is not a literary case, and his lifestyle mirrors his genuine vocation for an ordinary existence. What is left to guess is where he finds his extraordinary ideas. He would answer that his muse is literature, as his book Bartleby & co., largely inspired by Melville’s story, can confirm. Nonetheless, the literary influences Vila-Matas shows in his books also recall the old fire of story-telling when the author of the story was unknown and the teller used to play with his anonymous identity.