“I read Lejos de Kakania by Carlos Pardo. If I say it’s ‘the best Spanish novel I’ve read in 2019’ it sounds like promotional jacket copy, but it’s the best Spanish novel I’ve read this year. Lewd intimacy as a generational self-portrait. And it’s so fun.”

“For Pardo, irony is a creed, the blood of his writing, and now he inverts to chronicle the ups and downs of his friendship with the poet Virgilio López. The novel is vibrant and so entertaining, a true literary celebration (...) it has so many magnificent digressions, so many good jokes and entertaining dialogues, that I don’t think anybody could abandon it while reading (...) A spree, a carnival, a literary bomb.”

“An honesty that can rarely be found in autobiographical literature.”

“Literature that puts into question how the individual, the collective, and art can come to an understanding. This is Pardo’s writing: ironic and sociological in its twists and turns surrounding the idea of ‘normalcy.’”

“Kakanien was the name Robert Musil used to define the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and it’s also the space that the protagonists, Carlos Pardo himself and his friend Virgilio, traverse in this novel. Surprising, provocative, fun, experimental (partly written in verse and partly in prose), this book presents a portrait of friendship and the world of Spanish poetry that is acerbic and warm at the same time.”

“Far From Kakanien combines autobiographical writing with other genres like farce and verse. There’s a continual dialogue about the validity of poetry and a new twist on the cliché of autofiction.”

“Far From Kakanien has notable merits: the structure that is calculated with architectural solidity, the clear style of narrative effectiveness, the counterpoint of the pathetic and the humorous, the mixing of genres, and the author’s contrasting ability to narrate with strength and grace.”

“Far From Kakanien, his latest book published by Editorial Periférica, is a delicious novel, contained and harrowing, in which he paints a portrait of an entire generation — those born in the mid-70s — and in which he also recounts the lives of the poets with whom he began the fight to make a name for himself, the exact moment when a group of authors began to publish their books at the start of the 21st century, thus sublimating their friendships and quarrels, their jealousies and many similarities.”

“An ambitious novel that goes from erudition to calculated vulgarity, from tenderness to malice. The book is elevated by narrative poems...Pardo endeavors, book by book, to make sense of his childhood. His trilogy is a bomb, and simultaneously a carnival. To complete the game he proposes, we’d have to read it with a mask.”

“Far From Kakanien could be called a book that goes against conventions. The conventions of literary genres, in the first place. In each part of the book, Pardo makes use of a different technique and exhausts it, but, instead of giving the impression that he does so to show off, it feels like he does so to have fun and motivate himself. Despite his fragmented and heterogeneous character, this is a very well-thought-out book, calculated and subtly plotted, in which very different genres come together — from a literary journal full of gossip and spite meant for the entertainment of some and the ridicule of others, a subgenre that Pardo parodies brilliantly, to a travel book.”

“Far From Kakanien, from the happy city Musil described as a lost paradise; far from serenity and harmony, Carlos Pardo searches for a complete work, a novel that is a mix of diary, interview, testimony, poetry, and epic (...) The story of his days is filled with passion, verse, and an epic fight to make a place for himself in the world, like a battered hero who survives in the jungle of competitiveness and betrayal with friendship and memory as his only recourse. A beautiful book that mixes genres, satire saturated with life, love and friendship.”

“Carlos Pardo brutally portrays the friendship between two men while reflecting on a demoralized youth (...) A rupture that is not only generational, but also individual. Spirits who are damaged early on and who can count on their room, transformed into an islet independent from the main house. Exiting that room is like entering war, and this particular war starts with a maternal figure. One of the most raw portraits I’ve had the chance to read (...) A philosophical quality capable of making the reader confront the complexity of the world. ”

“You emerge from books like this one feeling strengthened, spirited, and with the desire to read more, much more.”