Chromos Author: Felipe Alfau American Literature Series April 1990 360 pages, 6 x 9 Dimensions: Paperback, 1-56478-204-2 Retail Paperback Price:$13.95 Our Paperback Price: $11.16—20% OFF! Retail Hardcover Price: $19.95 Our Hardcover Price: $15.96—20% OFF!

Search the full text of this book

Book Description

A controversial finalist for the National Book Award in 1990, Chromos is one of the true masterpieces of post-World War II fiction. Written in the 1940s but left unpublished until 1990, Chromos anticipated the fictional inventiveness of the writers who were to come along—Barth, Coover, Pynchon, Sorrentino, and Gaddis.

On one level, Chromos is the American immigration novel par excellence. Its opening line is: "The moment one learns English, complications set in." Or, as the novel illustrates, the moment one comes to America, the complications set in. The cast of characters in this book are immigrants from Spain who have one leg in Spanish culture and the other in the confusing, warped, unfriendly New World of New York City, attempting to meld the two worlds that just won't fit together.

While wildly comic and populated with some of the most bizarre characters, Chromos is also strangely apocalyptic, moving towards point zero and utter darkness.

About the Author

Felipe Alfau was born in 1902 in Guernica, Spain. He emigrated to the United States during World War I, where he studied music and wrote music criticism for a brief period for La Prensa, the Spanish newspaper in New York. Deciding to write in English because he felt he could not reach a Spanish audience, in 1928 he completed Locos, which took eight years to find a publisher. Meanwhile, in 1929, he published a children's book, Old Tales from Spain. After the publication of Locos, Alfau worked in a bank in New York City as a translator and wrote one other novel, Chromos. Chromos was not published for more than half-century after it was written, but was a finalist for the National Book Award when it was finally released.

Praise

"Alfau is a self-mocking formalist whose images verge on the magical. . . . an experimental novel that is (was), in fact, a forerunner to the work of Pynchon, Barthelme, and others."—Booklist

"I am envious of those who for the first time will be enchanted by this genius, a curiosity who foresaw the literary tastes of the future."—Commonweal

"With a cast of thousands, intellectual as well as physical poseurs; the nobility that was old Spain, and its poor substitute in a foreign land, Alfau has created a poetic, cinematic and glittering black comedy which works on many levels. His timeless creations take the longer view of history, and attempt to decide: 'whether my ancestors were but immigrants disguised as conquerors, or whether all aliens are but conquerors disguised as immigrants."—Dublin Sunday Tribune

"This book has already made me wonder if I will read a better novel this year. . . . [It] is beautifully written."—Glasgow Herald

"Richly aphoristic, with titillating digressions into mathematics and metaphysics . . . this book represents intellectual fiction at its best."—Library Journal

"This is . . . a remarkable book, not only for what it says, but also for what it is struggling to say, often with strangely successful insights."—Boston Review

"This remarkable . . . novel is a worthy successor to Alfau's Locos."—Publishers Weekly

"As entertaining as it is cerebral. Alfau's depiction of the immigrant's plight is both playful and mournful. In either case, it's the product of a fascinating mind."—Seattle Times

More Information

Also by Felipe Alfau:
Locos: A Comedy of Gestures
Sentimental Songs (La poesia cursi)