UI Press | Miguel de Unamuno | Mist: A Tragicomic Novel

Mist

A Tragicomic Novel

A revolutionary landmark in world literature that introduces the anti-hero/anti-novel, undergirded by philosophy

A towering figure of political, philosophical, and literary controversy, Miguel de Unamuno was the undisputed intellectual leader of the brilliant Generation of 1898 that ushered in a second golden age of Spanish culture. In the vast and varied body of his work, none conveys his intellectual legacy more effectively than Mist, a monument of the philosophical novel and a masterpiece of modern experimental fiction.

Dispensing with the conventions of action, time and place, and analysis of character, Mist proceeds entirely on the strength of dialogue that reveals the struggles of what Unamuno called his "agonists." These include Augusto Perez, the pampered son of a recently deceased mother; the deceitful, scheming Eugenia, whom Augusto obsessively idealizes; and Augusto's dog Orfeo, who gives a funeral oration upon his master's death. Mist even includes a chapter that explains Unamuno's theory of the antinovel.

Anticipating later writers such as Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, Unamuno exploited fiction as a vehicle for the exploration of philosophical themes. First published in 1914, Mist exemplified a new kind of novel with which Unamuno aimed to shatter fiction's conventional illusions of reality. It is an antinovel that treats its fictionality ironically. This historic reissue includes a foreword by Theodore Ziolkowski.

"It is excellent news that Unamuno's Niebla is once again available in English, in this readable version by Warner Fite. The generally pedantic and even stilted tone of much of Augusto's monologues and dialogues has been preserved, and even if that seems strange to the unprepared English-reader. . . . Reading this translation has confirmed me in the belief that Niebla deserves not to be forgotten." -- Roger Wright, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies

Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) was one of Spain's most accomplished authors. His works include The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Peoples, Abel Sanchez, and Love and Pedagogy. Theodore Ziolkowski, a professor of German and comparative literature at Princeton University, is the author of The View from the Tower: Origins of an Antimodernist Image and other books.

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