Manuel Vilas

Following the model of Renaissance poets, Manuel Vilas has composed a kind of poetic autobiography.

A breath of truth and intimacy runs through this book, in which he tells his story without concealment and, in a certain sense, tells ours as well.

“Naïve, enthusiastic, merciful—she is always with me: poetry, everywhere. Poetry is an unfading form of fervor. Out of that fervor, to honor and amplify it, I have gathered in this book the poems I love most, the ones that move me, seduce me, disturb me, or enchant me. Many unpublished poems appear here for the first time. I have also rewritten a few—given them a new appearance. New clothes for all. A day of celebration for all. I believe the book the reader holds in their hands is entirely original. It is a new book. It is not an anthology but a personal testament.

It is an invitation to you, reader, to spend a week with me—seven days of vacation beside my soul, hoping that my soul might become yours.” Manuel Vilas, One Single Life

“A shattering read.” Juan José Millás

“His lyricism springs from the everyday to address the universal themes that most affect human beings.” Andrés González-Barba, ABC

“Through verses overflowing with excess, prosaic tone, and narrative force, he turns reality into fiction through a kind of mask or persona (with traces of the accursed), without denying what is plainly autobiographical. His poems are long and verbose, often in prose. Their air is that of song—a rhythm reinforced by anaphora and chaotic enumeration.” Álvaro Valverde, El Cultural

“Each poem by the Aragonese writer is a monumental shot of full, fascinating, vertiginous life. His words quench the thirst of existence by guiding us through his world.” Jaime Roch, Levante

“Manuel Vilas’s poems have a plot, like boleros, in whose joys and misfortunes we see ourselves reflected.” Juan José Millás

“His words are as honest as a collapse. One Single Life shows Vilas at his most refined, elegant, and luminous.” Karina Sainz Borgo, ABC

“Vilas’s poetry arises from the thermodynamics of life—from the hedonism of pleasure and the joy of existence. His verses are tiled with the very substance of living, with what happens in the texture of the everyday.” Javier Ors, La Razón

“One Single Life is both literary testament and the beginning of a new ‘Great Vilas’—optimistic, open-armed to the world.” María Serrano, El Debate

“A reminder of time’s fleetingness and an invitation to live.” Rubén López, La Opinión de Málaga

“Such is Vilas’s poetry: the further it strays from the conventional path, the better; the more it escapes the channels of well-meaning logic, the more it shines—leaping across the abyss that both attracts and terrifies us.” Juan Bas, El Correo