The Famous Magician

Reviews

"Aira's works are like slim cabinets of wonder, full of unlikely juxtapositions. His unpredictability is masterful." — Rivka Galchen, Harpers

"Aira’s cubist eye sees from every angle." — Patti Smith, New York Times Book Review

"César Aira is writing a gigantic, headlong, acrobatic fresco of modern life entirely made up of novelettes, novellas, novelitas. In other words, he is a great literary trickster, and also one of the most charming." — Adam Thirlwell

"A writer’s future hangs in the balance when he is tempted by an “unexpected Mephistopheles” in Aira’s playful, self-reflexive latest...the story’s driving question of choosing a meaningful course for one’s life is timeless." — Publishers Weekly

"Aira’s short books are the literary equivalent of a Périgord black truffle — small, rich delicacies worth savoring and contemplating." — Polygon

"Aira, the Argentine master of a certain strain of unabashedly self-reflexive novella that frequently marries the ingratiating confidence of fabulism with postmodern panache, has offered his audience a wicked little piece of literary wish-fulfillment gone happily awry." — Roberto Ontiveros, Texas Observer

"The Famous Magician by Cesar Aira, translated by Chris Andrews, is my favourite of the new books. Aira is the ludicrously prolific Argentinian author of over a hundred short books that invariably come apart while somehow keeping their shape. Rules are established before being merrily violated, ho-hum personal accounts become far-fetched zombie stories, serious literary rumination gives way to comic book pastiche. The method appears to have been working: the results have been books that don’t read like the ones you encounter in life but the kind you might pick up in dreams." — J.W. McCormack, The New Left Review