Alaab al-'umr al-mutaqaddim (Juegos de la edad tardia / Games of the Late Age)

Gregorio is a middle-aged clerk, grey and ordinary, whose youthful aspirations for an exciting and intellectual life have faded to nothing when he gets into a phone relationship with Gil, a modest, mature man exiled in the countryside. This relationship changes everything completely, and it is through his conversations with Gil that Gregorio forges another personality for himself as Faroni, an attractive polyglot, engineer and poet, and great traveller. Gregorio is so thoroughly immersed in his own lies, however, that when Gil suddenly announces that he is finally coming to meet him, he panics completely. Al'ab muta'akhirah was first published in 1989 and went on to win Spain's Critics' Prize that same year, followed by the National Literature Prize in 1990, making Luis Landero one of the top names in contemporary Spanish literature.