London Times Books of the Year

From the selection made by the London Times writers:

Nadine Gordimer

Carlos Fuentes's This I Believe : A Life From A to Z. The work of a complete mind, emotions: the dazzling range of experience opened, questioning, exulting, believing, doubting. There is bountiful pleasure in being led by wonderful prose and effortless erudition from Christ to Kafka, Revolution to Sex, Time to Jealousy, Death to Urbanities, Children, Politics, Velázquez, Globalization. The philosophy? Best expressed by Fuentes himself: "Preserve and create are our rival verbs at the dawn of this new century".

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Alberto Manguel

The new novel by the Argentinian Eduardo Berti, Todos Los Funes, is a wonderfully funny, literate adventure story set in academia. An absent-minded professor named Funes discovers that an astonishing number of Latin American writers have chosen the name Funes for their protagonists (Borges, Bioy Casares, Roa Bastos, etc).

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Ian Michael

The major event on the Anglo-Spanish literary scene was the publication in New York of Fever and Spear (New Directions; Chatto in the UK), the first part of Javier Mari­as's tripledecker tour de force, Your Face Tomorrow, of which the second part, Baile y sueño (Dance and Dream), appeared in Madrid (Alfaguara) late last year.

You can find the full article here.