Attila

From the author of Last Words on Earth--an reimagining of Roberto Bolaño’s life--comes a book articulating the final years of Aliocha Coll, one of Spain’s most innovative writers as he completes his masterpiece, Attila (also available from Open Letter Books).

Living alone in Paris, estranged from his family, suffering from heartbreak and possibly madness, Alioscha Coll works with saintly intensity on what will be his final manuscript: Attila. Once the final words have been written, he vows to end his life, convinced that his existence will lose all purpose.

Told through the viewpoint of a literary critic and journalist, Attila expands Javier Serena’s investigation into artists who remained dedicated to their art, to their aesthetic vision in the face of complete dismissal by the publishing world and reading public. In the case of Last Words on Earth and Ricardo Funes (the stand in for Bolaño in that novel), things work out and he briefly becomes the star of the literary world--could the same happen for Alioscha Coll?

Javier Serena was born in Pamplona, Spain in 1982. He has published Las torres de El Carpio, La estación baldía, Last Words on Earth, and Attila. He has stayed at writers residences with the Fundación Antonio Gala (Córdoba, Spain) and Les Rècollets (Paris, France).

Katie Whittemore translates from the Spanish. Her translations include novels by Sara Mesa, Javier Serena, Aroa Moreno Durán, Lara Moreno, Nuria Labari, Katixa Agirre, Jon Bilbao, Juan Gómez Bárcena, Almudena Sánchez, Aliocha Coll, and Pilar Adón. She received an NEA Translation Fellowship in 2022 for Lara Moreno’s In Case We Lose Power, and has been a finalist for the Spain-USA Foundation Translation Prize and the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute Translation Prize, and longlisted for the National Translation Award.