Julián Ríos

Mawkib al-dilal

A striking reassessment of the Don Juan myth. A literary tour de force, this extraordinary novel is told in single-minded pursuit of double meanings, but it is serious play. Larva is a rollicking account of a masquerade party in an abandoned mansion in London. Milalias (disguised as Don Juan) searches for Babelle (as Sleeping Beauty) through a linguistic funhouse of puns and wordplay recalling Joyce's Finnegans Wake. A mock-scholarly commentary reveals the backgrounds of the masked revellers, while Rios' allusive language shows that words too wear masks, hiding an astonishing range of further meanings and implications. Larva revives a Hispanic tradition repressed for centuries by introducing the English tradition of puns, palindromes and acrostics (a word puzzle in which certain letters in each line form a word or words) and establishes Rios as the most accomplished successor (in any language) to Joyce.

Midsummer Night's Babel

Larva

Alejandro Toledo

Es una antología que reúne parte de la obra narrativa y ensayística de Julián Ríos en donde, al estilo y con la gran influencia de James Joyce, el autor toma las palabras para jugar con ellas y crear nuevos vocablos originados por la interacción del español con otras lenguas, al punto de llegar a confundirse en un mundo babélico. Las imágenes juegan un papel relevante en la escritura y, en los textos recogidos en esta antología, se puede percibir con facilidad el interés del autor por relacionar a pintores como R. B. Kitaj, Roy Lichtenstein, Antonio Saura y Miró con su propia producción literaria e innovación lingüística. La prosa casi poética de Ríos nos muestra que el lenguaje puede ser tan maleable como se quiera y que el mundo literario no debe ser tan estricto como para no darle un lugar primordial al humor.

antología

Larva y otras noches de Babel

R. B. Kitaj

Kitaj: Pictures and Conversations is both a conversation with and a meditation on the work of the American-born painter R.B. Kitaj, who has lived more than half his life in London. Together novelist, Julian Rios, and painter, R.B. Kitaj, in an exuberant exchange of wordplay and allusion, look at the formative experiences that lie behind the extraordinary eclecticism of Kitaj's art. They consider the influence on his work of artists ancient and modern, his fascination with the grim underside of city life, and the huge inspiration he has found in literature and the cinema. They also explore his increasing awareness of his Jewish identity and the quest to comprehend through his painting the conflicts and troubles of his century.

Pictures and Conversations

Kitaj

James Joyce

Epifanías

Nick Caistor

A riotous tribute to James Joyce and a surprising tour of the house of fiction.

A Novel

The House of Ulysses

Ronald Brooks Kitaj

Octavio Paz

Octavio Paz Lozano

Teatro de signos/transparencias

Julian Rios

First published in Spain in 1983 and proclaimed "an instant postmodern classic, without a doubt the most disturbingly original Spanish prose of the century" (Encyclopedia Britannica 1985 Book of the Year), Larva is a rollicking account of a masquerade party in an abandoned mansion in London. Milalias (disguised as Don Juan) searches for Babelle (as Sleeping Beauty) though a linguistic fun house of polylingual puns and wordplay recalling Joyce's Finnegans Wake. A mock-scholarly commentary reveals the backgrounds of the masked revelers, while Ríos's punning and allusive language shows that words, too, wear masks, hiding an astonishing range of further meanings and implications. Larva's tale, a reassessment of the Don Juan myth in our time, is told in single-minded pursuit of double meanings, but it is serious play. It revives a Hispanic tradition repressed for centuries by introducing the Madhatter English tradition of puns, palindromes, and acrostics, by creating Joycean echoes and pushing language to its maximum connotative capacity. Larva has been praised by such leading Spanish-language writers as Carlos Fuentes, Juan Goytisolo, and Severo Sarduy, and establishes Ríos as the most accomplished successor to Joyce.

Larva. Midsummer Night's Babel

Julián Ríos

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