At once a dirty joke and a highbrow novel, this tale tells the bizarre story of Ramon Maria, a balding, middle-aged. trumpet player who wakes up one day with a massive neverending erection. Hailed across Europe as a masterpiece of literary parody, it is bound to be one day seen as the biggest rival yet to Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint.

The Enormity of the Tragedy

Literature & Fiction

Monzó, Quim

Humor & Satire

Peter Owen Publishers

"Monzó delivers drollery on nearly every page, in observations that are incisive and hilarious and horrifying, often all at once."—Publishers WeeklyFor the first time in his life, Heribert Juliá is unable to paint. On the eve of an important gallery exhibition, for which he's created nothing, he's bored with life: he falls asleep while making love with his mistress, wanders from bar to bar, drinking whatever comes to his attention first, and meets the evidence of his wife Helena's infidelity with complete indifference. Humbert Herrera, an up-and-coming artist who can't stop creating, picks up the threads of Heribert's life, taking his wife, replacing him at the gallery, and pursuing his former mistress. Heribert is finally undone by a massive sculpture, while Humbert is planning the sculpture to end sculpture, the poem to end poetry, and the film to end film, all while mounting three simultaneous shows.
A fun-house mirror through which he examines the creative process, the life and loves of artists, and the New York art scene, Gasoline confirms Quim Monzó as the foremost Catalan writer of his generation.
Quim Monzó was born in Barcelona in 1952. He has been awarded the National Award, the City of Barcelona Award, the Prudenci Bertrana Award, the El Temps Award, the Lletra d'Or Prize for the best book of the year, and the Catalan Writers' Award; he has been awarded Serra d'Or magazine's prestigious Critics' Award four times. He has also translated numerous authors into Catalan, including Truman Capote, J.D. Salinger, and Ernest Hemingway.
Mary Ann Newman is the Director of the Catalan Center at New York University's Center for European and Mediterranean Studies. She is a translator, editor, and occasional writer on Catalan culture.

Gasoline

Literary

Open Letter

"A gifted writer, he draws well on the rich tradition of Spanish surrealism . . . to sustain the lyrical, visionary quality of his imagination."—New York Times
All the heroes of this story collection—the boy who refuses to follow the family tradition of having his ring finger cut off; the man who cannot escape his house, no matter what he tries; Robin Hood stealing so much from the rich that he ruins the rich and makes the poor wealthy; Gregor the cockroach, who wakes one day to discover he has become a human teenager; the prophet who can't remember any of the prophecies that have been revealed to him; Ulysses and his minions trapped in the Trojan horse—are faced with a world that is always changing, where time and space move in circles, where language has become meaningless. Their stories are mazes from which they can't escape.
The simultaneously dark, grotesque, and funny Guadalajara reveals Quim Monzó at his acerbic and witty best.
Quim Monzó was born in Barcelona in 1952. He has been awarded the National Award, the City of Barcelona Award, the Prudenci Bertrana Award, the El Temps Award, the Lletra d'Or Prize for the best book of the year, and the Catalan Writers' Award; he has been awarded Serra d'Ormagazine's prestigious Critics' Award four times. He has also translated numerous authors into Catalan, including Truman Capote, J.D. Salinger, and Ernest Hemingway.
Peter Bush is a renowned translator from Catalan, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. He was awarded the Valle-Inclán Literary Translation Prize for his translation of Juan Goytisolo's The Marx Family Saga.

Guadalajara

"Today's best known writer in Catalan. He is also, no exaggeration, one of the world's great short-story writers."—The Independent
A Thousand Morons, Quim Monzó's latest collection of short stories, is rife with very unfortunate characters. There's the young boy in "A Cut" who is upbraided by his teacher when he rudely shows up for class with a huge gash in his neck. And the prince in "One Night" who tries everything to awaken a sleeping princess—yet fails completely.
Seeing that this is a Quim Monzó collection, absurdity offsets the "moronic" sadness. Such as "Love Is Eternal," which features a man who decides to finally overcome his commitment issues and marry his dying girlfriend, only to have everything backfire; or "The Fullness of Summer," in which a family meticulously records every moment of their gathering.
An excellent combination of longer, elegiac stories of "morons," aging, and the passage of time—with short, flashier pieces that display Monzó's wit and playfulness—make this one of the strongest collections in the oeuvre of Catalan's short fiction master.
Quim Monzó was born in Barcelona in 1952. He has been awarded the National Award, the City of Barcelona Award, the Prudenci Bertrana Award, the El Temps Award, the Lletra d'Or Prize for the best book of the year, and the Catalan Writers' Award; he has been awarded Serra d'Ormagazine's prestigious Critics' Award four times. He has also translated numerous authors into Catalan, including Truman Capote, J.D. Salinger, and Ernest Hemingway.
Peter Bush is a renowned translator from Catalan, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. He was awarded the Valle-Inclán Literary Translation Prize for his translation of Juan Goytisolo's The Marx Family Saga.

A Thousand Morons

Contemporary

A man tries to teach a stone to speak through sheer force of will. An engaged couple makes a pact to never lie, and their union dissolves immediately. Over the course of a phone call, a man learns that his girlfriend died months ago, and that he’s been unknowingly seeing her twin sister. Prince Charming marries Cinderella, but then has an affair with the evil stepsisters. A psychopath's liver explodes after a night of heavy drinking, but instead of killing him, it allows him to be a better drinker.
These, and many more, strange and twisted characters populate the pages of Why, Why, Why?, a delectable brew of dark humor and biting satire on human relationships. In these stories, the characters don’t start falling until they know they’re off the cliff. By then, rock bottom isn’t a long way off. Another stunning entry from Catalan’s greatest contemporary writer, Monzó’s stories dust themselves off and speed on to their next catastrophe.

Why, Why, Why?

Gazoline

ED. J. CHAMBON

Der Grund der Dinge.

Short Stories & Anthologies

Frankfurter VA., Ffm.

Die Aktentasche

Frankfurter Verlags-Anst.

El porqué de las cosas

Genre Fiction

Editorial Anagrama

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Monzó, Quim. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Monzó, Quim