Pedro Almodóvar

The Last Dream (eBook, ePUB)

The perfect book for any Almodóvar fan
Übersetzer: Wynne, Frank

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

A wildly inventive story collection from legendary film director Pedro Almodóvar

The Last Dream brings together for the first time twelve unpublished stories from Almodóvar's personal archive, written between the late sixties and the present day. Both a tantalising glimpse into Almodóvar's creative mind and a masterclass in how to tell a story, this intimate and mischievous collection reflects Almodóvar's obsessions and many of the themes of his cinematic work, spanning genres from autofiction to comedy, parody, pastiche and gothic. The title story, 'The Last Dream', is a beautiful chronicle of the death of Almodóvar's mother, and other stories include: a love story between Jesus and Barabbas; a cult film director out in search of painkillers on a bank holiday weekend; the primary version of the film Bad Education; and a gothic tale of a repentant vampire among monks.

In his introduction, Almodóvar writes: 'I've been asked to write my autobiography more than once, and I've always refused; it's also been suggested that I let someone else write my biography, but I have always felt somewhat resistant to the idea of a book entirely about me as an individual. I've never kept a diary, and whenever I've tried, I've never made it to page two; in a sense, then, this book represents something of a paradox. It might be best described as a fragmentary autobiography, incomplete and a little cryptic.'

A celebration of the relationship between life and art, fiction and reality from an artist unafraid to write about our most intimate moments, these stories explore desire, mortality, loneliness and the pain and glory of artistic creation, laced with playful humour and a deep love of literature and culture.

Translated by Frank Wynne

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Vintage Publishing
• Erscheinungstermin: 26. September 2024
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781529918649
• Artikelnr.: 69598087

Autorenporträt

Pedro Almodóvar (Author)
Pedro Almodóvar is a world-renowned, multi-award-winning film director and screenwriter whose many films include Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, All About My Mother and Talk to Her. Almodóvar has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, five BAFTA Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and five Goya Awards.

Rezensionen

"Instantly fascinating, brimming with twisting narratives and unforgettable endings... The Last Dream stands alone as a major literary talent's virtuosic debut." - Kaveh Akbar, New York Times bestselling author of Martyr!

"Sometimes surreal, sometimes prurient, sometimes discomfiting-and every page worth reading." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"The celebrated Spanish film director gleefully subverts the sacred as a matter of course. Populated by religious figures, sex workers, pop-culture icons, a gentle vampire, and a man who ages in reverse, these tales, written over five decades, are largely of a piece with Almodóvar's exuberant, genre-defying cinema." - New Yorker

"A heady mix of factual and fictitious, befitting of one of cinema's most imaginative storytellers... [the collection is] bracing, the book serving as an outlet for something Almodóvar can't express from behind a camera." - The Observer

"'The Life and Death of Miguel'...could have been written by Roberto Bolaño at his height... It's fascinating that in fiction Almodóvar prefers to inhabit [a] historical and often fantastical universe. To judge by The Last Dream, he's akin to a Spanish Angela Carter, or a cousin to the undersung Argentinian genius Silvina Ocampo. What his films and stories have in common is a vivid melodrama; a preoccupation with motherhood, outsiders and religion." - Telegraph

"The Last Dream is an inspiring testament to one of cinema's great creative forces. These stories/ allegories/ dreams/ philosophical riffs and intense personal sketches shimmer with all of the vibrance, humor, provocation and humanity of Almodóvar's entire body of work. A true delight." - Sam Lipsyte, author of the New York Times bestseller The Ask

"The stories in The Last Dream are like a kaleidoscope that reflects to you only the finest, most unexpected moments. The delicious blend of truth and fiction drops you intimately, with raw honesty, inside Almodóvar's heart. I love this book!" - Miguel Arteta, director of Beatriz At Dinner

"[A] brisk, eclectic and idiosyncratic tour of [Almodóvar's] memories and imagination... Over the course of 211 pages, the exuberant, coal-haired enfant terrible of Spanish cinema becomes the salt-and-pepper-haired auteur of the late 90s and then, finally, the thoughtful, white-haired sage [of today, these] 12 tales tell a more honest story than would a straightforward memoir." - The Guardian

"The sheer depth and breadth of the collection is astonishing, and it's made more astonishing by the economy of language. A slim volume of just a dozen stories, The Last Dream is light on embellishment or lengthy description. Almodóvar's prose is lean but evocative, elegant but grounded, and translator Frank Wynne has done a remarkable job rendering it into stylish, beautifully spare English. Almodóvar's characters, like those in his films, are full of yearning and wonder. Both for fans of great short fiction and for fans of the director, The Last Dream is a must-read." - BookPage (starred review)

"A literary treat ... exactly what one would expect from Almodóvar, who gleefully flouts conventions of so-called morality with in-your-face works on homosexuality, religion, and more ... great, cheeky fun ... Devotees of Almodóvar's cinema won't be disappointed by this lively collection." - Shelf Awareness

"Pedro Almodovar's first book isn't a memoir, even though he's been asked to write one for many years. But it's like a memoir of the mind, for Almodovar presents everything from childhood memories to short stories to ideas for films to enigmatic passages that might be any or all of these things. It's typically tantalizing, melodramatic, unexpected and inevitably Almodovarian." - Parade

"A genre-agnostic spin through the Spanish filmmaker's favorite preoccupations: doleful divas, Catholic education, rebellion, and the countercultural ferment of Madrid after Franco's rule." - Vulture