Recital of the Dark Verses

By: Luis Felipe Fabre, Heather Cleary (Translator)

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Paperback | 2 November 2023

At a Glance

Paperback
200 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
22.8 x 15.2 x 0.64

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A road novel, a coming-of-age tale, and a raunchy slapstick comedy that tells—in careening, charismatic prose—the (true) story of the theft of the body of Saint John of the Cross.

In August 1592, a bailiff and his two assistants arrive at the monastery of Úbeda, with the secret task of transferring the remains of Saint John of the Cross, the great Carmelite poet and mystic, to his final abode. When they exhume him, they find the saint''s body as incorrupt and fresh as when he died.

Thus commences a series of adventures and misfortunes populated by characters that seem to be drawn from mythology. Luis Felipe Fabre masterfully incorporates Saint John''s verses into his prose, as if the saint had prophesied the delirium that would surround his own posthumous transfer. This funny, highly entertaining novel manages to honor the mystical poetry of the Carmelite while inviting the reader to reflect on issues such as the sacred and the profane, the body and the soul, and spiritual (as well as carnal) ecstasy.

Industry Reviews

"Luis Felipe Fabre, one of the most original and provocative poets in Latin America, has written a genre-bending novel full of humor and a blazing intelligence." -Valeria Luiselli, author of Lost Children Archive and The Story of My Teeth

"Absurd, philosophical, playful and episodic, Recital of the Dark Verses is a revelation. The theft of a saint's body creates the occasion for a hilarious road trip through provincial Spain. A cousin to Quixote, Fabre's historical novel takes history and religion and manages to shape it into something entirely new. By turns brilliant, wise, entertaining, and profound. Cervantes would be proud." -Mark Haber, author of Saint Sebastian's Abyss and Reinhardt's Garden

"Though short and structured simply, there is a profound complexity to Fabre's Recital of the Dark Verses, one that evokes reader emotion and reflection throughout, whether a fan of poetry or not. Moreover, it contains a complexity of language to match the paradoxes of its themes. ... I sincerely hope that Fabre writes further novels, and that Cleary will be there to English them so well." -Daniel P. Haeusser, World Literature Today

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