Lost Luggage - Softcover

Punti, Jordi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1476730318 ISBN 13: 9781476730318

Publisher: Atria Books, 2013

Synopsis

The prize-winning debut novel from a major new talent in Catalan literature--the story of four half-brothers who only discover the others' existence when the father who abandoned them all is reported missing.

Christof, Christophe, Christopher, and Cristòfol are four brothers--sons of the same father and four very different mothers--yet none of them knows of the others' existence. They live in four different cities: Frankfurt, Paris, London, and Barcelona. Unbeknownst to them, they have one thing in common: Gabriel Delacruz--a truck driver--abandoned them when they were little and they never heard from him again.

Then one day, Cristòfol is contacted by the police: his father is officially a missing person. This fact leads him to discover that he has three half-brothers, and the four young men come together for the first time. Two decades have passed since their father last saw any of them. They barely remember what he was like, but they decide to look for him to resolve their doubts. Why did he abandon them? Why do all four have the same name? Did he intend for them to meet?

Divided by geography yet united by blood, the "Christophers" set out on a quest that is at once painful, hilarious, and extraordinary. They discover a man who during thirty years of driving was able to escape the darkness of Franco's Spain and to explore a luminous Europe, a journey that, with the birth of his sons, both opened and broke his heart.

About this title

Review

"Lost Luggage is an ingenious creation, plotted with lovely patterns and symmetries. It is alert to the sheer untidiness of life and filled with the strange connections between public events and private destinies."--Colm Toibin, New York Times bestselling author of Brooklyn and The Testament of Mary

"Punti delivers a richly told literary novel...The character's wit and the author's vivid imagination shine through in this beautiful translation."--Kirkus Reviews

"An adept translation of dazzlingly polyphonic fiction."--Booklist, Starred Review

"Punti is a sprightly writer, delighting in taking us down byways and through backwaters as the novel circles Gabriel's disappearance. But the big, bold self-consciously picaresque storytelling never completely loses sight of the book's central theme, the ways in which family, and its lack, can shape a life."--Financial Times

"A funny, moving and poignant exploration of identity, home, family and freedom."--The Daily Express

"This is a remarkable work, full of invention and consistently gripping."--Times Literary Supplement

"A conjuring trick. Incomparable literature."--El País

"A book as extraordinary as it is memorable. Jordi Puntí already belongs to the noble tradition of the great storytellers."--Rock de Lux

"Inventive, absorbing and beautifully written."--The Daily Mail

"A remarkable work of literary fiction that also manages to be unputdownable."--London Review of Books

About the Author

Jordi Puntí is a writer, translator, and a regular contributor to the Spanish and Catalan press. Punti is considered one of the most promising new voices of contemporary Catalan literature. In 1998, he published his first book of short stories, Pell d'armadillo that won the Serra d'Or Critics' Prize. He is also the author of the novel Lost Luggage.

About this edition

• Publisher: Atria Books
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1476730318
• ISBN 13: 9781476730318
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448