Author:César Aira,Chris Andrews
Cesar Aira's An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter captures a moment in the life of the German artist Johann Moritz Rugendas.
Greatly admired as a master landscape painter, he was advised by Alexander von Humboldt to record the spectacular landscapes of Chile, Argentina and Mexico. Rugendas did in fact become one of the best nineteenth-century European painters to venture into Latin America. However, this is not a biography of Rugendas, but rather a work of fiction which weaves an almost surreal history around Rugendas' trips to Argentina where he strived to achieve in art the 'physiognomic totality' of Humboldt's scientific vision of the whole. A brief and dramatic visit to the pampas gives him the chance to fulfill his ambition but a strange episode that he cannot avoid absorbing savagely into his own body interrupts the trip and irreversibly marks him for life . . .
Praise for Cesar Aira:
'Once you've started reading Aira, you don't want to stop' Roberto Bolaño
'Aira is firmly in the tradition of Jorge Luis Borges and W. G. Sebald' Los Angeles Times
Cesar Aira was born in Coronel Pringles, Argentina, in 1949, and has lived in Buenos Aires since 1967. One of the most prolific writers in Argentina, Aira has published more than seventy books.
A cult classic . . .
—— Daily ExpressTremendous momentum
—— Daily TelegraphThis book gripped me from the first chapter and then dropped me days later, dazed and grinning to myself
—— Conn IgguldenA terrifically realised encounter between the clashing values of traditional Islam and the hedonistic, secular West... Beautifully written, painfully resolved.
—— Lionel Shriver , The TimesMore than a stylish thriller… The central plot has parallels with The Bonfire of the Vanities, while the socialites could be straight out of The Great Gatsby
—— StylistA gripping read
—— KirkusA superbly compelling novel... As menacing and engrossing as the best McEwan
—— Robert Collins , Sunday TimesOsborne brings together all his authorial talents in this gripping and sophisticated thriller
—— Emma Hagestadt , IndependentStylish, somehow both lavish and muscular at the same time
—— David Evans , Independent on SundayUtterly compelling; at the risk of trotting out a cliché, I couldn't put the book down
—— Justin Cartwright , ObserverA brilliantly observed tale of class and hedonism
—— The Times, *Summer Reads of 2023*Meg Wolitzer’s latest offering promises to be the epic novel of the summer
—— Stella, Sunday TelegraphA wonderful novel, written with warmth and depth of emotion
—— Kate Mosse , The TimesThis is an exhilarating, aerobatic, addictive novel
—— Claire Lowdon , Sunday TimesMeg Wolitzer’s best novel yet
—— William Leith , Evening StandardThe dreamy, criss-crossing narrative proves Wolitzer one of America’s most ingenious and important writers
—— Sunday TelegraphAn engrossing look at life’s twists and turns
—— Woman's WeeklyThe wit, intelligence and deep feeling of Wolitzer’s writing are extraordinary and The Interestings brings her achievement, already so steadfast and remarkable, to an even higher level.
—— JEFFREY EUGENIDESThis is a wonderful book. Intelligent and subtle, it is exquisitely written with enormous warmth and depth of emotion… Wolitzer is an affectionate and clear-sighted observer of human nature
—— Kate Mosse , The TimesMeg Wolitzer proves brilliant at writing normal, unremarkable lives, investing them with just as much detailed attention and humane humour as the lives of the beautiful, the rich and the famous… [She] also pulls off an impressive balancing act, sometimes inhabiting the moment-to-moment present of her characters, and at others times writing with a droll hindsight
—— Holly Williams , Independent on SundayThere are certain authors whose new book you look forward to as though you were about to catch up on news from an old friend. And there are authors whose new book you fall on greedily because you know it will be tartly delicious and satisfy a hunger you didn’t know you had till you read them for the first time. For me, Meg Wolitzer has long been in both of those categories… The Interestings is full of Wolitzer’s trademark pleasures. I love her fearlessness in tackling everything … She has a sly wit and verbal brio which can even make clinical depression entertaining
—— Allison Pearson , Daily Telegraph