From domestic distractions to doubt and crippling insomnia, never has a book about the repetitious banality of the process of writing a novel or, in fact avoiding writing a novel been so compelling and accurately rendered. Mario Levrero turns the act of procrastination into a supreme art form. Benjamin Myers We are all his children. Álvaro Enrigue Levrero is an author who challenges the canonical idea of Latin American literature. If you really want to complete the puzzle of our tradition, you must read him. Juan Pablo Villalobos, Granta The Luminous Novel could qualify as a new instalment in the literature of boredom, except that it's too charmingly, haplessly funny to be boring. Lily Meyer, NPR The Luminous Novel is Levrero's greatest work, which he wrote by forcing himself to write it, knowing beforehand that what he wanted to write was impossible. Thats why, instead of the novel, he narrates the distractions that sidetrack him from the novel. Its not so surprising that the happiest moment in The Luminous Novel is when Mario Levrero manages, finally, to fix Word 2000. Surely, fixing Word 2000 is easier than writing that unfathomable novel that Levrero writes but doesnt write. But to write the luminous novel it is necessary to pass through the dark novel; to make true literature it is crucial to turn to, as he says, fraudulent literature. Novel without a novel; literature without literature. Alejandro Zambra
