Cabaret Biarritz
by José C. Vales
Description
NADAL PRIZE 2015 -
In the summer of 1925, the residents of Biarritz were shocked by a tragic event. The body of a young girl appeared dangling with a foot caught in one of the iron rings used for securing boats in the port. In 1938, the young, passionate writer Georges Miet receives what would turn out to be the most important assignment of his career. His editor asks him to write a ‘serious’ novel about what had taken place in Biarritz almost fifteen years earlier. Miet does not hesitate to travel to the vibrant, coastal city to speak to everyone who could have been linked to the event and comes upon people from all rungs of the social ladder; ranging from domestic employees to distinguished, high-society ladies, as well as reporters, two gendarmes, a photographer, artists, performers, a judge and even a nun. Miet interviews each person he believes to be involved, as if preparing a press feature, in order to meticulously transcribe their statements. He sketches an accurate and detailed portrait of sophisticated, outrageous Biarritz, which turns into the model setting for those golden years of the 1920s during which society sought to break with the most long-established and outdated conventions.
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Rights Information
Italy (Neri Pozza)
Romania (Editura Trei)
France (Denöel - Gallimard)
Endorsements
“Cabaret Biarritz is an extraordinary, comic symphony, at times redolent of other works such as La verdad sobre el caso Savolta (The Truth About the Savolta Case) by Eduardo Mendoza”. - LORENZO SILVA, writer and President of the Nadal literary award panel 2015
“Cabaret Biarritz masterfully mixes criminal investigation and social parody. Vales builds a magnificent literary artifact that is a striking display of discernment”. - FRANCISCO SOLANO, Babelia. El País
“It is an astonishing Nadal award winner”. - EITB
“José C. Vales’ narrative style is somewhat reminiscent of the most renowned and highly-regarded storytellers in English literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Lewis or Dickens. The reader is presented with prose in which the elegant narration shines through, the simplicity of the most traditional elements of Dickensian literature in contrast with lyricism”. - Revista Krítica
“With a singular cohort of characters he creates a magnificent literary world that is an exhibition of astuteness”. - El País
“Written from the pleasure of storytelling which is at the same time the pleasure of reading”. - La Vanguardia
“We find ourselves before a first class narrator”. - El Mundo
Reviews
Press clipping available on demand.
Author Biography
Jose C. Vales (Zamora, 1965) (Zamora, 1965) Studied a degree in Spanish Language and Literature at the University of Salamanca and went on to specialize in the philosophy and aesthetics of romantic literature in Madrid. His work has always been linked to the publishing world, as a writer, editor and translator for various publishers. He created the updated edition of Charles Dicken’s Cuentos de Navidad (A Christmas carol and other christmas stories) (Espasa, 2011) and Anthony Trollope’s classic: Las torres de Barchester (Barchester towers) (Espasa, 2008). Some of his most notable translations and pieces of editing include the ninth publication of Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft and Percy B. Shelley (Espasa, 2009) based on the new manuscripts found in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and the Wilkie Collins classics, La piedra lunar) (The moonstone) and Armadale, published in 2007 and 2008 by Verticales de Bolsillo Belacqva. His latest translations for the publishing house Impedimenta have merited considerable recognition: La hija del optimista, (The optimist’s daughter) by Eudora Welty, La hija de Robert Poste, (Cold comfort farm) by Stella Gibbons, Reina Lucía (Queen Lucia) and Mapp y Lucía, (Mapp and Lucia) by E. F. Benson, as well as La juguetería errante, (The moving toyshop) by Edmund Crispin. His first novel is called El Pensionado de Neuwelke, (The Neuwelke boarding School) and was published by Planeta in 2013.
Books From Spain
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View all titlesBibliographic Information
- Publisher/Imprint Planeta / Destino
- Orginal LanguageSpanish
- ISBN/Identifier 9788423349289
- Publication Country or regionSpain
- FormatPaperback
- ReadershipGeneral
- Publish StatusPublished
- Original Language TitleSpanish
- Original Language AuthorsSpanish
- Copyright Year2015
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