Arturo Cifuentes re-appears like a ghost from
the past in the life of the narrator, Antonio Orejudo.
Cifuentes is an old college friend and was Orejudo’s roommate in New York when they both started
working in the United States. Seventeen years have gone by since they last saw
each other, and a divorced Cifuentes has returned to
Spain to become a member of the faculty in the university where they once
studied. He has many stories to tell: his marital crisis, his unfortunate
professional adventures, and most importantly, his falling out of love with the
Humanities. The narrator, who also goes into the fevered experiences that
marked him during those years, does not suspect that his old friend wants to
propose something much more important that will affect them both: He wants to
reveal the phonies for what they are and to expose the roots of an old and
permanent conspiracy. The stories, which alternate between the emotional and
the humorous, follow each other at an addictive pace. The different versions
amplify, complement or contradict each other, as if it couldn’t possibly be any
other way. What others tell us, what we tell ourselves, what the past tells us,
and even the truths which we take for granted about institutions and
disciplines, don’t they, in the end, make a “reality to size”?
Antonio Orejudo was born in Madrid in 1963, and has a doctorate in Spanish Language and
Literature. For seven years he worked as a Spanish literature professor in
different universities throughout the United States and also spent a year as a
visiting professor at the University of Amsterdam. He is currently a professor
in the University of Almería (Spain). He is the
author of Fabulosas
narraciones por historias, recipient of the XX Tigre Juan Prize
in 1997 and published by Tusquets Editores in 2007; Ventajas de viajar en tren,
which was granted the XV Andalucía Prize for Novel; and Reconstrucción,
“the year’s most impressive Spanish book”, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung.
Praise for Un momento de
descanso:
“The novel has great comic force in many of its
scenes, and it is a very pleasurable read thanks to the author’s talent for
anecdotal storytelling and to his tendency towards cultural jokes and malicious
allusions.”
El Periódico
“The reader jumps euphorically through the pages of
this book and leaves them as a kid does a parade. Let happiness reign! Qué Leer
“If Orejudo is not the best novelist in Spain
today, I put my prestige on the line in affirming that he is – by far – the
most interesting.” Estado Crítico
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