O'clock

by Quim Monzó

An award-winning anthology of sixteen short stories ranges from a satirical look at South American society, to a study of AIDS, to evocative portraits of the author's native Catalonia

Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Quim Monzó was born in Barcelona in 1952.
He has been awarded the National Award for fiction; the City of Barcelona Award for fiction; the Prudenci Bertrana Award for fiction; the El Temps Award for best novel; the Lletra d'Or Prize; the Catalan Writers' Award; the Maria Àngels Anglada; the Trajectòria; he has also been awarded Serra d'Or magazine's prestigious Critics' Award, four times.

In 2007 he wrote and read the opening speech at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Monzó designed a lecture written as if it was a short story. It differed completely from traditional speeches.
Together with Cuca Canals, he wrote the dialogues for Bigas Luna's movie Jamón, jamón. He has also written the musical satire El tango de Don Joan, with Jérôme Savary.
He is a regular contributor to the La Vanguardia newspaper.

Reviews

[Donald Armfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to Open Letter Press and Karen here on goodreads for introducing me to Quim, but this was not some of his work. I own "One Thousand Morons" and that collection is great.

This collection fell dead for me with only three stories outta sixteen that striked me as likeable.
What I did on Sunday: a morbid kinda death of a strange little boys family.

Russian Dolls: is a movie plot that feels like your reading it in a fast forward playing.

The Letter: is a psychotic bitch of a woman who gets here boyfriends addicted to her then leaves them, which ends with death.

Had high hopes for this. Guess I will try his other stuff. probably better than this.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh if only I knew Catalan! I'd translate all of Monzo's work into English. These are brilliant stories, some of them very funny, all well-written and in various forms (a letter, etc.) Highly recommended.