“Vampire in Love” by Enrique Vila-Matas [Why This Book Should Win]

Between the announcement of the Best Translated Book Award longlists and the unveiling of the finalists, we will be covering all thirty-five titles in the Why This Book Should Win series. Enjoy learning about all the various titles selected by the fourteen fiction and poetry judges, and I hope you find a few to purchase and read!

The entry below is by Mark Haber from Brazos Bookstore in Houston, Texas. He is also the author of Melville’s Beard, which is available in a bilingual edition from Editorial Argonáutica.

Vampire in Love by Enrique Vila-Matas, translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa (Spain, New Directions)

Chad’s Uneducated and Unscientific Percentage Chance of Making the Shortlist: 35%

Chad’s Uneducated and Unscientific Percentage Chance of Winning the BTBA: 4%

A master writer. A collection of stories covering the breadth of his storied career. The first time in English. These are only a few reasons Vampire in Love should win the Best Translated Book Award. A reader needn’t have experienced any of Vila-Matas’s incredible novels to appreciate and enjoy these tremendous stories. Funny, eerie, worldly and strange, Vila-Matas is a master of the form. As Roberto Bolaño said: “Vila-Matas’s excellence is an undisputed fact.” An astounding collection translated by Margaret Jull Costa.