JOSEPH O NEILL

El Aleph celebra -como si fuera un aniversario- el número 300 de su colección Modernos y Clásicos con la publicación de Netherland de Joseph O'Neill, una novela que ha cosechado magníficas críticas en Inglaterra y Estados Unidos y que ha sido distinguida por The New York Times como una de las 10 mejores obras literarias de 2008.En Netherland, Hans van den Broek, analista financiero holandes, nos cuenta su vida desde el momento en que decidio mudarse con su mujer y su unico hijo a la ciudad de Nueva York tras los atentados del 11-S. Dos hechos marcaran la vida de Hans en Manhattan: por un lado su matrimonio pasara por la cuerda floja y por otro conocera a Chuck Ramkissoon, un tipo fascinante, oriundo de Trinidad, que se ganara su confianza y su admiracion para fundar un club de criquet en Brooklyn. La narracion de esta emocionante historia arranca a principios de 2006, cuando Chuck Ramkissoon aparece muerto en el fondo de un canal de Nueva York. Hans van den Broek recibe la noticia desde Londres y recuerda su peculiar amistad con Chuck y la cara mas oculta de la ciudad en la que lo conocio. Esos años fueron dificiles para Hans: su mujer y su hijo abandonaron la ciudad despues de los ataques a las torres gemelas, como si el atentado terrorista hubiese sacado a la luz las brecha

In early 2006, Chuck Ramkissoon is found dead at the bottom of a New York canal.

A satirical attack on our modern, soulless society and he takes as his victim Dubai, circa 2007 a bizarre world that more closely resembles Mikhail Bulgakovs Russia than a corporate, cosmopolitan metropolis. ONeill has fun painting a mercilessly absurd portrait of the citys wealthy residents Our narrator is like Woody Allen trapped inside a Kafka novel Brilliant One of the wittiest critiques of modern, materialistic life that youll read for a long while Fiona Wilson, The Times[Netherland] did not make the (Man Booker) shortlist, but The Dog really should. It is the sort of enraged, brutal, witty and at times brilliant book that leaves you worrying about the mental state of its writer. Lucy Atkins, Sunday TimesOn page after page, O''Neill can still dazzle as a compellingly intelligent writer. Everywhere you look, there''s a shimmering portrait of modernity waiting to be glimpsed [An] ambitious, lucidly thought-through novel Robert Collins, GuardianONeill has become a writer extraordinarily attuned to the global and the post-national Like Netherland, The Dog has captured the zeitgeist This is where ONeill feels at home: telling the stories of those who cease to belong. Duncan White, TelegraphAn excellent fourth novel A finely crafted absurdist drama, written in sometimes thrillingly convoluted but never clunky prose. MetroOur only truly international writer, exploring contemporary subjects that have global resonance in books that brim with breathtaking but always carefully modulated prose O''Neill''s writing reflects the individual''s concerns in our desolate modern world in prose that is illuminating, amusing, sometimes beautiful, but never showy. A joy to read It''s the favourite and it deserves to win [the Booker] Supremely insightful and intelligent You can open the book anywhere and find sparkling sentences that perfectly describe what is momentarily in focus Original and brilliant. Irish Independent

LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2014 SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOLINGER EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE FOR COMIC FICTION The first novel from Joseph O'Neill since NETHERLAND. 'O'Neill, in this book, has come of age as a novelist ...a comic masterpiece ...as mordantly funny as the best of stand-up comedy ...Superb' John Banville, New York Review of Books In 2007, a New York attorney bumps into an old college buddy - and accepts his friend's offer of a job in Dubai, as the overseer of an enormous family fortune. Haunted by the collapse of his relationship and hoping for a fresh start, our strange hero begins to suspect that he has exchanged one inferno for another. A funny and wholly original work of international literature, 'The Dog' is led by a brilliantly entertaining anti-hero. Imprisoned by his endless powers of reasoning, hemmed in by the ethical demands of globalized life, he is fatefully drawn towards the only logical response to our confounding epoch.