The Past
  • Published: 31 August 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446496534
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 480

The Past

Formats & editions
EBook
31 Aug 2011
Paperback
15 Apr 2016
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A stunning tale of love gone bad: passion, obsession, sex and cocaine, all in excess.. Riveting from start to finish.

'A novel that is brilliant enough to raise itself effortlessly above and beyond the level of the vices it portrays: strange art and reckless passion, cocaine, excessive exercise and other forms of addiction' - Fabienne Dum, Le Monde

Rímini splits up with his girlfriend of twelve years, Sofía. The parting is initially amicable and he moves on, carefree, with a new zest for life. Hungry to make up for lost time and keen to forget the past, he finds a younger girlfriend and starts using cocaine.

Sofía, however, finds herself unable to let go, and continues to reappear on Rímini's horizon. Though the apparently idyllic relationship is over, their love has not died, merely taken on a different form. As time passes and their paths continue to cross, the past festers and torments them, like an infection.
  • Published: 31 August 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446496534
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 480
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About the author

Alan Pauls

Alan Pauls was born in Buenos Aires in 1959. He has worked as a university lecturer, scriptwriter, film critic and, more recently, as a journalist. He has published four novels, including the much-praised Wasabi. The Past has been published in several foreign languages, and it was the unanimously acclaimed winner of the 2003 Herralde Prize.

Praise for The Past

It soars in terms of style... Alan Pauls' finest work so far, displaying a rare intelligence... a momentous novel

Martin Schifino, TLS

Bold and powerful writing

El Pais

A novel that is brilliant enough to raise itself effortlessly above and beyond the level of the vices it portrays: strange art and reckless passion, cocaine, excessive exercise and other forms of addiction.

Le Monde

Entertaining

Observer

An ambitious novel

Daily Telegraph

Beautifully written, bold and powerful

Time Out

Almost 18th-century in its philosphical meanderings, and emotionally and rationally, deeply satisfying

Independent

A dazzling sexual odyssey...Alan Pauls is destined to be more widely celebrated

Glasgow Herald

...gripping tale...

Rev'd Charlotte Sinclair, Vogue

This superb novel... sensuous, delicate and controlled; it draws the reader in.

Times Literary Supplement
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