The Art of Flight

Sergio Pitol · 1933–2018 · Mexico

Originally El arte de la fuga (Spanish) · translated by George Henson

Why it matters

Memoir, literary criticism, and fiction dissolve into a single essayistic form tracing a life built between languages and countries. Belated recognition of Pitol's genre-blurring achievement won him Spanish letters' top honor, the Cervantes Prize.

At a glance

A genre-blurring essayistic form resists conventional memoir or narrative structure.