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More praise for Sergio Pitol:
“Pitol is not just our best living storyteller, he is also the strongest renovator of our literature.”
—ÁLVARO ENRIGUE, author of Sudden Death
“One of Mexico’s most culturally complex and composite writers. He is certainly the strangest, most unfathomable and eccentric… [His] voice…reverberates beyond the margins of his books.”
—VALERIA LUISELLI, author of Faces in the Crowd
“[The Art of Flight] is the most celebrated of Pitol’s novels… It travels through readings—from Antonio Tabucchi to [William] Faulkner and Thomas Mann—through cities, films, notebooks, and recordings, melancholy memories, hypnosis, and dreams.”
—Letras Libres
“The bountiful work of [Sergio Pitol] is one of the most original in the Spanish language.”
—El País
“[The Art of Flight] combines cultural density with autobiographical vigor…a landscape that is classic, desolate, ironic, parodic, and very lively.”
—CARLOS MONSIVÁIS
Deep Vellum Publishing
2919 Commerce St. #159, Dallas, Texas 75226
deepvellum.org · @deepvellum
Copyright © 2015 by Sergio Pitol
Originally published as El arte de la fuga in 1997 by Ediciones Era, Mexico City, Mexico Introduction “Pitol baja la lluvia” for The Art of Flight © 2004 by Enrique Vila-Matas
Translation copyright © 2015 by George Henson
First edition, 2015
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-941920-07-7 (ebook)
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CONTROL NUMBER: 2015930299
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Esta publicación fue realizada con el estímulo del PROGRAMA DE APOYO A LA TRADUCCIÓN (PROTRAD) dependiente de instituciones culturales mexicanas.
This publication was carried out with the support of the PROGRAM TO SUPPORT THE TRANSLATION OF MEXICAN WORKS INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES (PROTRAD) with the collective support of Mexico’s cultural institutions.
—
Cover design & typesetting by Anna Zylicz · annazylicz.com
Text set in Bembo, a typeface modeled on typefaces cut by Francesco Griffo for Aldo Manuzio’s printing of De Aetna in 1495 in Venice.
Deep Vellum titles are published under the fiscal sponsorship of
The Writer’s Garret, a nationally recognized nonprofit literary arts organization.
Distributed by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution.
Contents
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INTRODUCTION BY ENRIQUE VILA-MATAS
A VINDICATION OF HYPNOSIS
SIENA REVISITED
II. WRITING
THE NARRATOR
THE DARK TWIN
DROCTULF AND OTHERS
THE MARQUISE WAS NEVER CONTENT TO STAY AT HOME
ON RECONCILIATIONS
AND THE WORD BECAME FLESH
WRESTLING WITH THE ANGEL
TRAVELING AND WRITING
AN ARS POETICA?
HERE COMES THE PARADE!
CHARMS
III. READINGS
THE GREAT THEATER OF THE WORLD
OUR CONTEMPORARY CHEKHOV
ŠVEJK
BOROLA AGAINST THE WORLD
