A Certain Lucas

A classic Julio Cortázar novel, long out of print in a new edition, this is an amazing rediscovery: “Short takes of whimsy and surrealism, the tidbits here are like diamond chips” (Kirkus Reviews)

A kaleidoscopic novel by Julio Cortázar, A Certain Lucas contains a series of brilliant, eccentrically interlocking pieces, by turns comic, philosophical, allusive, and always a pleasure to read. In short takes, we are plunged directly into the life of Lucas, learning about his patriotism, his friends (“a list of cronies large and varied”), his shopping routines (always in his pajamas), his favorite pianists, his battles with the Hydra (“now that he’s growing old he realizes it’s not easy to kill it”) . . . his world is described in multiple quick parodies, with hilarious evocations of the latest trends: physical fitness, semiotics, cool pornography, and animal ESP. We are given glimpses and ultimately offered a strange, yet rounded portrait of a complete man, but not just any man. . . . This is a certain Lucas.

Julio Cortázar (1914-1984), Argentine novelist, poet, essayist, and short-story writer, was born in Brussels, and moved permanently to France in 1951. Cortazar is now recognized as one of the century's major experimental writers, reflecting the influence of French surrealism, psychoanalysis, and his love of both photography and jazz, along with his strong commitment to revolutionary Latin American politics.

Gregory Rabassa was born in Yonkers, New York, March 9, 1922. He grew up north of Hanover, NH, graduated from Dartmouth College, Class of 1944, Phi Beta Kappa, and got his MA, and PhD at Columbia University after serving as a U.S. Army, Infantry, Staff Sgt during World War II. One of Latin American literature’s most distinguished translators, Gregory Rabassa translated more than thirty novels from Spanish and Portuguese into English ― including works by Jorge Amado, Miguel Angel Asturias, Julio Cortázar, and Mario Vargas Llosa. Most notably, he translated Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. Among his many awards, Gregory Rabassa was a Fulbright Fellow, winner of the National Book Award for Translation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award, the Gregory Kolovakos Award, PEN. He is currently a Distinguished Professor at Queens College/CUNY and The Graduate School/CUNY.