Miquel de Palol

Premio Transfuge du meilleur roman hispanique 2015

Hi havia una vegada, a l'alba del tercer mil·lenni, una joia que atorgava al seu posseïdor poders incalculables. La desaparició d'aquest crucial objecte coincideix amb l'esclat de la tercera guerra mundial; un grup de personatges de les elits dirigents, refugiats en un remot palau d'alta muntanya, intenta, mitjançant els relats que cadascun fa als altres i que es multipliquen en un vertiginós cànon de narracions, establir les circumstàncies que van envoltar l'aparició de la joia, la seva possessió, la desaparició i la possible recuperació. 

Novel·la de novel·les, novel·la històrica, psicològica, costumista, de ciència-ficció, romàntica, simbolista, èpica i total, El jardí dels set crepuscles ha estat saludada pels crítics com una de les fites de la literatura catalana del segle XX. 

 "Hallucinatory, genre-hopping novel of improbably interwoven stories. […] You need a scorecard to keep track of the proceedings, but Palol delivers an entertaining intellectual mystery." Kirkus Review

"“The Garden of Seven Twilights” is a vast, encyclopedic epic of apocalypse, global conspiracy and familial intrigue, told in nested stories like “The Decameron” and “The Canterbury Tales.” The New York Times

"A Sprawling, Encyclopedic Archeology of Cold War Thought (...) A monumental tour-de-force, The Garden of Seven Twilights is a long-overdue introduction to Palol for English-speaking audiences. One can only hope that it will be followed by more translations…” Matthew Eatough, Ancillary Review of Books

"Cette somme littéraire est à dévorer, puis à conserver précieusement pour témoigner, un jour, de tout ce qui fit rêver les humains." Le Monde des Livres

"More contemporary than Boccaccio it reflects, on one hand, a touch of Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, without the Italian writer’s lightness and, on the other hand, a shade of Borges that calls to mind Pierre Ménard, Author of the Quixote." Alias, Il Manifiesto


"Palol, brilliantly following Bocaccio’s model(…) constructs a giant puzzle, alternating symbolic interpretations with astrological and cabalistic elements, excerpts of chronicles, mathematical calculations, unrequited love, mysterious legends, an autopsy, poetry, cryptic cinematic images, and mythological digressions all mixed together in a potentially infinite story." Il Giornale

"Since it’s origins, the novel has vacillated between the poles of restraint and capaciousness, the formal discipline of Flaubert or Jane Austen and the catch-all approaches of Sterne or Pynchon. Palol is a rarity in the landscape of present-day Catalan letters for his unswerving devotion to the latter approach." Words without borders

"“Il”, c’est-à-dire le grand roman européen, avec autant l’estomac (plus mille pages ici) que de cellules grises (histoire, philosophie, cosmologies, ésotériques: il brasse tout), le digne héritier des Broch, Mann, Musil. Miquel de Palol, c’est le cousin catalan et contemporain des fresquistes titanesques de l’Europe agonisante de l’entre-deux-guerres." Damien Aubel, Transfuge

"Un libro straordinario per gli amanti dei dilemmi logico-matematici, per i lettori di Borges, per tutti gli appassionati della più rarefatta e metafisica fantascienza." Maria Nicola, L'Indice

"This counts among the most important experiments in Spanish fiction in recent years. Palol’s novel follows in the footsteps of works by Borges, Calvino and Perec. What it brings to this end-of-century literature is an emphasis on pure pleasure derived from the dexterous use of language in the telling of the story." El Mundo

"This novel is the result of a titanic effort to bring the old and new together in a single whole that aspires to offer a complete picture of today’s world." ABC

"A passionate story that will grip the reader for the entire duration of its nearly 1,000 pages." El País