António Lobo Antunes, the Portuguese writer, has died at the age of eighty-three. I think he was no longer in vogue (I don't know if he ever was), but we have a number of his novels translated into Catalan: The Inquisitors' Manual (Ediciones 62, translation by Xavier Pàmies), The Splendor of Portugal, Exhortation to the Crocodiles and Don't rush into this dark night (Proa Editions, translated by Joan Casas) and I didn't see you in Babylon yesterday (El Gall Editor, also translated by Joan Casas). It is highly recommended reading.

For him (these are his own words), writing was an encounter of love, of knowledge, and what he intended was to transform the art of the novel. The essential thing was not the story, and plot did not seem to him to be the most important thing. What António Lobo Antunes, who died this ThursdayHis wish was not only that they read him, but that they live each of his books.