El gran imaginador
Novel , 2016
Plaza & Janés
Pages: 472
2017 Festival Celsius Award
This is the story of the greatest imaginer of all time. His own birth was an inexplicable event that went against the laws of nature, even though, today, there are few witnesses who can confirm the facts. Nikolaos Popoulos was born in Athens at the beginning of the 16th Century, under the ruling of the Ottoman Empire. He always wanted to be a writer, in order to leave at least some traces of all the things that his unlimited imagination had conceived. However, almost as if his life were cursed, he was repeatedly forced to become a man of action. Amid the golden cities and most remote places of a convulsive era, The Great Imaginer takes us back to the origins of fiction and shows us glimpses of some of the main icons of universal literature. Beyond the historical background, the main distinguishing features of this novel are the exuberance and the aesthetic touches of magical realism, which provide a platform to explore the European sources of the fantasy genre, of Gothic horror, and even science-fiction, while remaining within the formula of the adventure novel.
"Juan Jacinto Muñoz Rengel surprises with The Great Imaginer, a novel packed with fantasy, humor and literary homages." El País
"A heart-felt homage to literature and the imagination." El Cultural, El Mundo
"Now, after reading this passionate novel by Muñoz Rengel, we know a lot more. The great imaginer is the originator of modernity." Juan Francisco Ferré, Sur
"Popoulos is a Funes who imagines everything." Revista EÑE
"One of the most risk-taking and prolific authors in current Spanish fiction." Diario de León
"It takes a special mind to contemplate a novel about infinite imagination, and it takes a genius to write it without defrauding the reader." Revista Experpento
"Those who expected Muñoz Rengel to go for broke will be satisfied. Borges would have given anything to be the author of this novel." Málaga Hoy
"There is no other way than surrendering to the magnificent prose and the overwhelming personality of this great imaginer." La Verdad
"A homage to literature and fiction, with echoes of Borges and Cervantes." Revista Urban
"A vindication of fiction and inventiveness in these times of premature autobiographies and non-fiction." El Asombrario
"This novel is a marvel big enough to contain the world and all its genres.¨ Solidaridad Digital
"A journey to the roots of fantasy." Diario de Sevilla