1 1

Morel’s Invention

Morel’s Invention

Adolfo Bioy Casares, translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa, foreword by Jorge Luis Borges, afterword by Tom McCarthy

$16.95
$16.95
Available as E-Book International Literature Latin American Literature Spanish Literature
Sign up for our newsletter to be notified when this book and other new titles are available for purchase:

Jorge Luis Borges declared Morel's Invention a masterpiece, comparable to The Turn of the Screw and Journey to the Center of the Earth. When a fugitive washes up on a deserted island, he quickly discovers that the place is in fact populated by well-heeled tourists, whose nightly comings and goings are as bewildering as they are fascinating. Soon, the fugitive becomes enamored of a beautiful woman and finds himself more and more caught up in the island's mystery—until at last he realizes it is time for him to take action.

Inspired by Adolfo Boy Casares's fascination with the movie star Louise Brooks, and greatly admired by Julio Cortázar, Gabriel García Márquez, and Octavio Paz, Morel's Invention has gone on to live a secret life of its own. As the model for Alain Resnais and Alain Robbe-Grillet's Last Year at Marienbad, it changed the history of film. And in its contemplation of consciousness, perception, and the self, it stands as one of the first literary explorations of virtual reality.

Margaret Jull Costa's new translation of Morel's Invention, the first into English in more than fifty years, brings out the full force of the story's beguiling and metaphysical power.

Additional Book Information

Series: NYRB Classics
ISBN: 9798896230694
Pages: 120
Publication Date:

Praise

A masterfully paced and intellectually daring plot. Like the best science fiction, of which this is an exemplar, Bioy's themes have become ever more relevant to a society beholden to image. It is this keenness of thought and expression that buttresses Borges's claim of the novella's perfection.
—The Times

The Argentine Adolfo Bioy Casares is an urban comedian, a parodist who turns fantasy and science fiction inside out to expose the banality of our scientific, intellectual, and especially erotic pretensions. Bioy makes us laugh at our foibles with an affectionate yet elegant touch.
—Suzanne Jill Levine

View full details

  • Shopping for someone else but not sure what to give them? Give them the gift of choice with a New York Review Books Gift Card.

    Gift Cards 

  • A membership for yourself or as a gift for a special reader will promise a year of good reading.

    Join NYRB Classics Book Club 

  • Is there a book that you’d like to see back in print, or that you think we should consider for one of our series? Let us know!

    Tell us about it