Praise for Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire:
“Prieto seems as comfortable writing about the Crimea as he is about Istanbul, Finland, or Milan, his eyes wide open, his mind working, his sentences steadily producing wonder and a few chuckles…. Nabokov’s spirit, alive and kind, has touched him with its butterfly wings. In Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire, he enters today’s world equipped with the master’s tools and his own dazzling talent, and smuggles out splendorous treasures, eager to share them with a curious reader.”
—Aleksandar Hemon, The Village Voice Literary Supplement
“Sharp-eyed readers who see hints of Nabokov in the title of José Manuel Prieto’s novel will not be disappointed, for the much-admired Cuban-born author has fashioned a richly textured tale centered on the efforts of J. to smuggle his lover V. back to her homeland. Their separation and subsequent correspondence (full of literary allusions), and his search for a rare Russian butterfly, more than once recall Pale Fire.”
—Lee Milazzo, The Dallas Morning News
“Traversing the forms—among others—of the adventure novel, the travel book, the philosophic essay, the love letter, the moral epistle, the confession, the parable, José Manuel Prieto has written a book of a most original texture … [and] very studied and delicate structure, replete with literary homages, and woven from an abundance of subtle threads … set amid direct reportage of a crumbling empire.”
—Ignacio Echevarría, El País
“An engaging, confident tale about love, smuggling, and the labor of letter-writing on the shores of the Black Sea … Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire is a rich read … that flashes with the pleasure of the unexpected [and] that ensures that we will be eagerly watching the mail, awaiting his next installment.”
—Jesse Lichtenstein, The Hartford Courant
“If ever there was a writer destined by his strange life and high talent to write fiction of unclassifiable oddity, it is José Manuel Prieto…. [A] serious work of fiction with high literary ambitions … The picture of Soviet people, customs, and institutions is dead accurate, and sadly hilarious.”
—Clarence Brown, Trenton Times
“There are passages of enormous beauty in the book…. One reads it with … admiration for the originality of its author … as J. circles back to his starting point, which was about loss and nostalgia and attempted redemption within a morally shattered universe. These are heavily freighted themes, and Mr. Prieto is playfully, creatively, and a bit excessively up to them.”
—Richard Bernstein, The New York Times
“Vladimir Nabokov, wherever he is now, is either chuckling uncontrollably or purple with indignation over this delightfully tricky first novel by a young Cuban writer…. A charming original: a comic portrayal of an obsession with an edge of harsh post-Communist realism. It’s as if Thomas Pynchon, Graham Greene, and Milan Kundera had collaborated with Nabokov on a screenplay for Woody Allen.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Inside and out of Cuba, José Manuel Prieto is already regarded as the most exciting and original talent of his generation. His novels blend playful literary erudition and ‘street’ worldliness in a new and dazzling way. Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire offers the most hilariously wounded and obsessive narrator since Pale Fire’s Charles Kinbote, along with an unforgettable depiction of cultural and historical dislocation, disintegration, and nostalgia.”
—Francisco Goldman
“[A] hallucinatory tale of Communism’s collapse … Prieto records the manic inner life of a smuggler of cheap black-market antiquities, military goods, and other unsavory things, who drifts through ‘the smoking ruins of the Eastern Empire, from Varsovia to Cracovia, from Buda to Pest.’”
—Jonathan Bing, Bookforum
“Exceptional … Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire is a story of love and self-knowledge graced with the psychological power which is the imprimatur of Russian literature, lightened by a certain Caribbean freshness…. Intrigue, seduction, love, intensity, mathematical precision and devotion to detail, as well as an abundance of surreal science and high culture which manages never to be excessive. That’s Nocturnal Butterflies, a cutting-edge work touched by the magic of great literature.”
—Gabi Martínez, La Vanguardia (Barcelona)
“[A] beautiful prose writer. He does not cleave to the Latin American literary tradition…. It is a clever, dense novel and his aim is high.”
—Jean Plunkett, The Providence Sunday Journal
“Beautiful … Prieto creates a rich and empowering story of love and desire … of Castro’s Cuba and post-Communist Russia coming alive.”
—Christina Violeta Jones, Urban Latino
“Precise, gorgeous, and assured.”
—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal
“[A] striking, probing new novel … Deep but never ponderous, it possesses but isn’t dominated by exotic locales, adventure, strange psychological manifestations, and subtly dangerous characters.”
—Brian J. Buchanan, The Nashville Tennesseean
“A melodic tale of love, deception, and smuggling … Like a good letter, Prieto’s tale begs to be savored. The full, rich language and descriptive passages create a world of intrigue, where smugglers are victims of heartache and borderlands are the places of dreams.”
—Amee Vyas, The Book Reporter
“Literary, brooding, more than a bit obsessive … Butterflies is hot on the trail of a vanished empire and a lost lover. That combination, and the nostalgia that suffuses its telling, keeps you enthralled to the very end.”
—Anderson Tepper, Time Out New York
“Entertaining … structurally complex.”
—Frank Caso, Booklist (starred review)
NOCTURNAL BUTTERFLIES OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
NOCTURNAL BUTTERFLIES OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
A Novel
José Manuel Prieto
Translated from the Spanish by
Carol and Thomas Christensen
Copyright © 1999 by José Manuel Prieto
Translation copyright © 2000 by Carol and Thomas Christensen
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.
Originally published in Spanish as Livadia by Literatura Mondadori, Barcelona, in 1999.
Published simultanesouly in Canada Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Prieto González, José Manuel, 1962–
[Livadia. English]
Nocturnal butterflies of the Russian Empire : a novel / José Manuel Prieto ; translated from the Spanish by Carol and Thomas Christensen.