Böcker i Catalan Literature-serien

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 "e;man without qualities"e; 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.

A moving contribution to the tradition of the metaphysical novel as exemplified by Dostoyevsky and Bernanos, and likewise a worthy counterpart to the vibrant and polyphonic work of fellow Iberians Camilo Jos? Cela and Juan Goytisolo, "The Sea" is a cornerstone of postwar Catalan literature. Set in a tubercular sanatorium in Mallorca after the Spanish Civil War, it tells the story of three children sharing a gruesome secret who are brought together again by chance and illness -- two patients and one nurse. A love triangle, a story of retribution, and an exploration of evil, "The Sea" is "a profound and radical descent into the depths of the human soul." (Gerard de Cortanze)