From the publisher:
"I think the Nobel prize should be awarded to the Argentinian writer César Aira. His work—hard to keep up with at three published books a year—reflects the existential conditions of 21st-century literature. Fulgentius is a wide-open book, unruly and immoderate, overflowing with whimsy and laughing at the idea of perfection. Like (almost) no other writer, César Aira is devoted not to the surprising, but to the unknown." —Magnus William-Olsson
Translated by Chris Andrews
By profession I am a soldier, a general in the glorious Roman army. As a playwright, I think of myself as a sublime amateur.
In César Aira’s new novel, Fulgentius, a sixty-seven-year-old imperial Roman general—“Rome’s most illustrious and experienced”—is sent to pacify the remote province of Pannonia. He is a thoughtful, introspective person, a saturnine intellectual who greatly enjoys being on the march away from his loving family, and the sometimes deadly intrigues of Rome. Fulgentius is also a playwright (though of exactly one play) and in every city he pacifies, he stages a grand production of his farcical tragedy (written at the tender age of twelve) about a man who becomes a famous general only to be murdered “at the hands of shadowy foreigners.” Curiously, what he had imagined as a child turns out to be the story of his life, almost. As the playwright-turned-general broods obsessively about his only work, the magnificent Lupine Legion—“a city in movement” of 6,000 men, an invincible corps of seasoned fighters wearing their signature wolfskin caps—kills, burns, pillages, and loots their way to victory. But what does victory mean?
176 pages. 5" x 7". Softcover.
