Premio Alfaguara 2013

“José Ovejero is undoubtedly one of the best writers in Spain today.” Rosa Montero

When Samuel receives a call out of the blue about the death of Clara, his own numbing existence seems about to end. Does it matter that he never knew her? Could he fake his way through her funeral? Unable to pass up the chance to find a new future by rewriting the past, Samuel leads himself down a path of lies, until he finds himself trapped in a labyrinth of his own invention.

From one of Spain’s most renowned living authors comes an existential thriller of first mistaken and then stolen identity, which brilliantly exposes the fictions people create to sustain themselves in a dehumanising modern world.

First published in Spanish in 2013 as La invención del amor. Translated from the Spanish by Simon Deefholts and Kathryn Phillips-Miles.

Shortlisted for the Society of Authors‘ 2018 Valle Inclán prize for best translation from Spanish into English. The panel commented: “The translation … achieves a natural fluency and tone which makes it possible to engage with a narrator whose attitudes and decisions are not always commendable.”

• • Excerpt: eurolitnetwork I go back up the stairs…
  • Excerpt: minorliteratures There are no hymns and no prayers…
  • Review by M. A. Orthofer: complete-review.com
  • Article: Memories of Madrid
  • Author’s website (in Spanish)
  • Author biography & bibliography