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Quarantine

Juan Goytisolo author Peter Bush translator

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Dalkey Archive Press

Published:21st Apr '94

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Quarantine cover

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.

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

ISBN: 9781564780447

Dimensions: 224mm x 146mm x 15mm

Weight: 349g

112 pages