Name: Tyrant Banderas
Price: 14.83 EUR
Availability: InStock
Author: Alberto Manguel
ISBN: 9781590174982

Type

Physical Book

Author

Ramón del Valle-Inclán

Introduction by

Alberto Manguel

Translated by

Peter Bush

Publisher

New York Review of Books

Year

2012

Language

English

Pages

224

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

20.3 x 13.0 x 1.2 cm

Weight

0.24 kg.

ISBN

1590174984

ISBN13

9781590174982

Synopsis "Tyrant Banderas"

An NYRB Classics Original The first great twentieth-century novel of dictatorship, and the avowed inspiration for García Márquez's The Autumn of the Patriarch and Roa Bastos's I, the Supreme, Tyrant Banderas is a dark and dazzling portrayal of a mythical Latin American republic in the grip of a monster. Ramón del Valle-Inclán, one of the masters of Spanish modernism, combines the splintered points of view of a cubist painting with the campy excesses of 19th-century serial fiction to paint an astonishing picture of a ruthless tyrant facing armed revolt. It is the Day of the Dead, and revolution has broken out, creating mayhem from Baby Roach's Cathouse to the Harris Circus to the deep jungle of Tico Maipú. Tyrant Banderas steps forth, assuring all that he is in favor of freedom of assembly and democratic opposition. Meanwhile, his secret police lock up, torture, and execute students and Indian peasants in a sinister castle by the sea where even the sharks have tired of a diet of revolutionary flesh. Then the opposition strikes back. They besiege the dictator's citadel, hoping to bring justice to a downtrodden, starving populace. Peter Bush's new translation of Valle-Inclán's seminal novel, the first into English since 1929, reveals a writer whose tragic sense of humor is as memorably grotesque and disturbing as Goya's in his The Disasters of War.

Alberto Manguel

(Introduction by)

View Author's Page

Alberto Manguel is a writer, editor, translator, and essayist of Argentine-Canadian descent, born in Buenos Aires on March 13, 1948. Internationally recognized for his profound reflection on reading, books, and libraries, Manguel has dedicated much of his work to exploring the connection between human beings and the written word.

During his youth, he briefly worked as a reader for Jorge Luis Borges, an experience that deeply marked his life and his view of the act of reading. In the 1980s, he moved to Canada, where he became a citizen and developed much of his career as an author. He also lived in other countries, such as France and Germany, and has worked in various roles related to the publishing, academic, and library worlds.

Among his most famous books are A History of Reading (1996), The Library at Night (2006), and The Traveler with the Light Luggage (2011). His work blends personal memory, cultural history, and literary criticism, with a scholarly yet accessible style.

He was the director of the National Library of Argentina from 2016 to 2018. Considered a great contemporary humanist, Manguel continues to be an influential figure in thinking about written culture and reading as a form of knowledge and freedom.

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