Juego de cartas / Game of cards
Novel , 1964
Cuadernos del Vigía
A novel that is not read, but shuffled.
This work proposes a radically different way of storytelling and reading, in which chance is not a device but the true driving force of the narrative. Conceived as a singular literary object, it invites the reader to take an active role in shaping the story.
The narrative unfolds as a unique reading experience: 108 playing cards that the reader must shuffle, cut, and deal. On the face of each card, the story of Máximo Ballesteros, the author’s alter ego, develops in a fragmentary and chance-driven manner. They are cards meant for play, but also cards—true missives—to be read, in which each fragment adds a new piece to the portrait of the protagonist.
The work thus takes shape as an unusual literary deck or novel of cards, where the playful gesture sets the narrative in motion and each reading is necessarily different. While the faces of the cards contain the text, their reverses feature drawings attributed to the fictional painter Jusep Torres Campalans, extending the interplay between literature, chance, and the visual arts. The result is a hybrid and radically original piece, midway between a book, an art object, and a game.