Book cover for Waltz by Francesc Trabal

Waltz

Francesc Trabal
2013 Released
270 Pages
4-5 Hours
Audiobook Unavailable
Paperback Unavailable
Hardback Unavailable
Dalkey Archive PressISBN 9781564789853
Translated by Martha Tennent

First published in 1936, and considered one of the most innovative and significant novels written in Catalan, Waltz tells the tale of an idle, introspective, and somewhat oblivious young "man without qualities" as he stumbles through a milieu of civic upheaval and bourgeois tragedy as he waltzes from one prospective bride to another, never willing to compromise his ideals, and so never quite becoming an adult. With one foot in the romanticism of Goethe or Kleist, and another in the wildly differing takes on the modern novel provided by Aldous Huxley, James Joyce, and Marcel Proust, respectively, Waltz is an occasionally absurd comedy of indecision and indolence structured in imitation of the dance from which it takes its title.

Francesc Trabal

Francesc Trabal was born in Sabadell, Spain, in 1899. He contributed to numerous magazines from an early age, and was a centrally important author, editor, and journalist for the Catalan community before being forced into exile after the Spanish Civil War. He died in Santiago, Chile, in 1957.

Martha Tennent

Translated by

Martha Tennent was born in the U.S, but has lived most of her life in Barcelona where she served as founding dean of the School of Translation and Interpreting at the University of Vic. She translates from Spanish and Catalan, and received an NEA Translation Fellowship for her work on Rodoreda.

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