Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

Available for the first time in English,
is a masterpiece of world literature, first published in Germany in 1953 and hailed by Thomas Mann as “one of the greatest books of the twentieth century.” Set on Mallorca in the 1930s in the years leading up to World War II, it is the fictionalized account of the time spent there by author-writing as Vigoleis, his alter-ego — and his wife, Beatrice, lured to the island by Beatrice’s dying brother, who, as it turns out not dying at all but broke and ensnared by the local prostitute.
Pursued by both the Nazis and Spanish Francoists, Vigoleis and Beatrice embark on a series of the most unpredictable and surreal adventures in order to survive. Low on money, the couple seeks shelter in a brothel for the military, serves as tour guides to groups of German tourists, and befriends such literary figures Robert Graves and Harry Kessler, as well as the local community of smugglers, aristocrats, and exiled German Jews. Vigoleis with his inventor hat on even creates a self-inflating brassiere. Then the Spanish Civil War erupts, presenting new challenges to their escape plan. Throughout, Vigoleis is an irresistibly engaging narrator; by turns amusing, erudite, naughty, and always utterly entertaining.
Drawing comparisons to
and
,
is a novel of astonishing and singular richness of language and purpose; the story is picaresque, the voice ironic, the detail often hilarious, yet it is a work of profound seriousness, with an anti-war, anti-fascist, humanistic attitude at its core. With a style ranging from the philosophical to the grotesque, the colloquial to the arcane,
is a literary tour de force. From Booklist
Starred Review Bryce Christensen “A genuine work of art.”
— Paul Celan “A masterpiece.”
— Times Literary Supplement “Worthy of a place alongside
and other modernist German masterworks; a superb, sometimes troubling work of postwar fiction, deserving the widest possible audience.”
— Kirkus Reviews “A charming if exhausting blend of cultural self-examination and picaresque adventure… Even when the author-narrator’s observations prove overwhelming, his cultural insights, historical laments, literary references, and abundant wit make this first English translation (by Amherst professor White) and the book itself a literary achievement.”
— Publishers Weekly “[A] brilliant novel…Readers will thank a gifted translator for finally making this masterpiece-acclaimed by Thomas Mann-available to English-speakers.”
— Booklist, starred review
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