The Adventures of the Ingenious Alfanhui

This is the first English translation of The Adventures of the Ingenious Alfanhui, a picaresque novel in which the hero, a magical little boy, goes in search not of his fortune but of knowledge, growing both wiser and possibly sadder in the process.


'In his dedication, Ferlosio describes this exquisite fantasy novel, first published in 1952 and now beautifully translated into English as a 'story full of true lies.' Much honored in his native Spain, Ferlosio is a fabulist comparable to Jorge Borges and Italo Calvino, as well as Joan Miro and Salvador Dali. Cervantes comes to mind. Ferlosio's prose is effortlessly evocative. A chair puts down roots and sprouts 'a few green branches and some cherries,' while a paint-absorbing tree becomes a 'marvelous botanical harlequin.' Later, Alfanhui sets off on a tour of Castile, meeting his aged grandmother 'who incubated chicks in her lap and had a vine trellis of muscatel grapes and who never died.' This is a haunting adult reverie on life and beauty and as such will appeal to discriminating readers.'
Starred review in Publisher's Weekly

Rafael Sanchez Ferlosio, the son of a Spanish father and an Italian mother, was born in Rome in 1927. He is one of Spain's most celebrated novelists, and yet his reputation is based largely on two novels: his first book, The Adventures of the Ingenious Alfanhui, (1951) and The Jarama (1956), which won the Spanish National Critics' Prize. One is a children's fantasy for adults, the other a minute dissection of one tiny chunk of reality. Since thei rpublicatiuon thery have acquired classic status.

Margaret Jull Costa has translated the works of many Spanish and Portuguese writers. She won the Portuguese Translation Prize twice, the 1997 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Weidenfeld Translation Prize 3 times, the Pen Book-of-the Month-Club Translation Prize, the Marsh Children's Fiction in Translation Award & the Best Translated Book Award. In 2013, she was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and, in 2014, was awarded an OBE for services to literature. In 2018, she was awarded the Ordem Infante D. Henrique by the Portuguese government.