From one of the most important voices in world literature—and the award-winning author of The Infatuations—a darkly comic campus novel and love story about that most British of institutions, Oxford University. • "Javier Marías is in my opinion one of the best contemporary writers." —J.M. Coetzee, Nobel Prize-winning author of Disgrace
In All Souls, a visiting Spanish lecturer, viewing Oxford through a prismatic detachment, is alternately amused, puzzled, delighted, and disgusted by its vagaries of human vanity. A bit lonely, not always able to see his charming but very married mistress, he casts about for activity; he barely has to teach. Yet so much goes into simply "being" at Oxford: friendship, opinion-mongering, one-upmanship, finicky exchanges of favors, gossip, adultery, book-collecting, back-patting, backstabbing. Marías demonstrates a sweet tooth for eccentricity in this novel from “one of the best contemporary writers” (J.M. Coetzee, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature).
"Javier Marías is in my opinion one of the best contemporary writers." —J.M. Coetzee
"Dazzling.... Javier Marías writes with elegance, with wit and with masterful suspense." —The Times Literary Supplement
“Javier Marías is such an elegant, witty and persuasive writer that it is tempting simply to quote him at length.” —The Scotsman
"Stylish, cerebral.... Marías is a startling talent...His prose is ambitious, ironic, philosophical, and ultimately compassionate." —The New York Times
From one of the most important voices in world literature—and the award-winning author of The Infatuations—a darkly comic campus novel and love story about that most British of institutions, Oxford University. • "Javier Marías is in my opinion one of the best contemporary writers." —J.M. Coetzee, Nobel Prize-winning author of Disgrace
In All Souls, a visiting Spanish lecturer, viewing Oxford through a prismatic detachment, is alternately amused, puzzled, delighted, and disgusted by its vagaries of human vanity. A bit lonely, not always able to see his charming but very married mistress, he casts about for activity; he barely has to teach. Yet so much goes into simply "being" at Oxford: friendship, opinion-mongering, one-upmanship, finicky exchanges of favors, gossip, adultery, book-collecting, back-patting, backstabbing. Marías demonstrates a sweet tooth for eccentricity in this novel from “one of the best contemporary writers” (J.M. Coetzee, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature).
Praise
"Javier Marías is in my opinion one of the best contemporary writers." —J.M. Coetzee
"Dazzling.... Javier Marías writes with elegance, with wit and with masterful suspense." —The Times Literary Supplement
“Javier Marías is such an elegant, witty and persuasive writer that it is tempting simply to quote him at length.” —The Scotsman
"Stylish, cerebral.... Marías is a startling talent...His prose is ambitious, ironic, philosophical, and ultimately compassionate." —The New York Times
