Listen to Me

Poetry. Manuel Vilas continues his literary journey in LISTEN TO ME, an English translation of the original Spanish text. Between 2008 and 2013, the five years covered in this zany, entertaining book, Vilas recounts his days exploring the internet and its potential as a literary medium, first on his blog and then, later, on Facebook. In these formats he experimented freely with his writing. Real time responses from his virtual readership created an interactive mode of writing.

In LISTEN TO ME the text itself is structured as sequential, dated entries; the entries vary widely in content and style. Some elements read like poetry, others quite like prose, alternating between the two, yet not seeming to be prose poetry either. A dominant feature of the style is dialogue, principally between the author and God, other authoritative figures, and rock and roll icons. The combination of these features--writing on internet platforms, real time interaction with a readership, diaristic dialogues, and varied literary styles result in a text that is difficult to position within literary genres. For this reason, perhaps LISTEN TO ME is best considered a hybrid text.

Regardless of the genre to which it might be assigned, LISTEN TO ME stands as a humorous and ironic dissection of contemporary Spanish culture. Very few of the Spanish privileged (politicians, the wealthy, Church leadership) are left unscathed; fictionalized encounters with pop icons like Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, and Bob Dylan weave their American origins into the author's frayed tapestry. The unifying feature of the text, though, are the conversations between an omniscient and sometimes irascible God and an insincerely obsequious struggling writer, Vilas himself. The result is a delightful, entertaining, fun adventure in world literature.