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SHORTLISTED FOR THE EDWARD STANFORD PRIZE FOR FICTION WITH A SENSE OF PLACE
‘His confident, spellbinding prose is jewelled with uncanny details, gliding along in language that strikes, unsettles, and reawakens at every turn…This is a brilliant book‘ Maya C. Popa
‘Cool and controlled…Electrifying…Reading Rupert Thomson novels can easily become an obsession’ The Times
——–
Set on the eve of the financial crash of 2008, Barcelona Dreaming is made up of three stories that are linked by time and place, and also by the moving, unexpected interactions of a rich cast of characters.
The stories are narrated, in turn, by an English woman who runs a gift shop, an alcoholic jazz pianist, and a translator tormented by unrequited love, all of whose lives will be changed forever. Underpinning the novel, and casting a long shadow, is a crime committed against a young Moroccan immigrant.
Exploring themes of addiction, racism, celebrity, immigration, and self-delusion, and fuelled by a longing for the unattainable and a nostalgia for what is about to be lost, Barcelona Dreaming is a love letter to one of the world’s most beautiful cities and a powerful and poignant fable for our uncertain times.
‘His confident, spellbinding prose is jewelled with uncanny details, gliding along in language that strikes, unsettles, and reawakens at every turn…This is a brilliant book‘ Maya C. Popa
‘Cool and controlled…Electrifying…Reading Rupert Thomson novels can easily become an obsession’ The Times
——–
Set on the eve of the financial crash of 2008, Barcelona Dreaming is made up of three stories that are linked by time and place, and also by the moving, unexpected interactions of a rich cast of characters.
The stories are narrated, in turn, by an English woman who runs a gift shop, an alcoholic jazz pianist, and a translator tormented by unrequited love, all of whose lives will be changed forever. Underpinning the novel, and casting a long shadow, is a crime committed against a young Moroccan immigrant.
Exploring themes of addiction, racism, celebrity, immigration, and self-delusion, and fuelled by a longing for the unattainable and a nostalgia for what is about to be lost, Barcelona Dreaming is a love letter to one of the world’s most beautiful cities and a powerful and poignant fable for our uncertain times.
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Reviews
Elegant and electrifying. Thomson's prose is sparse, yet so highly charged that I couldn't stop reading. I love all his novels - but this one is my new favourite.
The three stories in Barcelona Dreaming are connected by ingeniously created threads, but also by a tone that is ironic, observant, alert to the complexity of the characters' motives and desires. The book is set in the modern city of Barcelona, its atmosphere invoked with intimate knowledge and a matchless sense of place.
'The next best thing to actually moving to the Catalan capital'
What a haunting book. I didn't want to finish it...The stories have stayed with me as if they are actually memories...Extraordinary
I don't know how Rupert Thomson does it. Each novel he writes is a new vision of a new world; he's the least predictable, the most surprising of writers. Barcelona Dreaming is set in that city, and it seems as if Thomson knows every corner of it, and every kind of human being who might live there. My astonishment is only surpassed by my admiration.
'I was captured by Barcelona Dreaming'
The supremely sensuous rendering of Barcelona itself is superb
I wonder if I've ever sat so intimately alongside characters in a story. Rupert Thomson has so brought this writing to life I can literally feel it on my skin. Save yourself the airfare: your new friends in Barcelona live right here
Rupert Thomson's Barcelona Dreaming tells three lightly interlinked stories of residents of the city on the eve of the financial crash of 2008. Thomson conjures up a fascinating cast of beautiful people with complicated lives who've lost a lot and have more to lose.
Barcelona Dreaming is a wonderful book, a phantasmal hymn to a city and a lost way of life
Thomson is at his full powers in this 13th captivating novel. He reaffirms his gift for writing on place, bringing Barcelona vividly and complexly to life for a travel-starved pandemic audience. His confident , spellbinding prose is jewelled with uncanny details, gliding along in language that strikes, unsettles, and reawakens at every turn. This is a brilliant book.