Antonio Munoz Molina Interviewed by Boyd Tonkin

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Prizewinning Spanish novelist Antonio Munoz Molina talks about his Medici Prize-winning work, To Walk Alone in the Crowd.

The novel traces the path of a nameless wanderer in Manhattan and is inspired by classic works by the likes of De Quincey, Baudelaire, Poe, Joyce, Benjamin, Melville, Lorca, and Whitman. It works a collection of overheard conversations, subway ads, commercials, snatches from books, mundane anxieties, and the occasional flash of insight into a poem of contemporary life. The book is both a denunciation of the conversion of everything into merchandise or rubbish and a celebration of the beauty and variety of the world.

Molina has been writing since the 1980s. He has won the Premio Planeta, the 2013 Jerusalem Prize, a biennial literary award given to writers whose works have dealt with themes of human freedom in society, and the 2013 Prince of Asturias Award for literature, awarded to individuals from around the world who make notable achievements in the sciences, humanities, and public affairs. His novel, Like a Fading Shadow, was a Booker Prize finalist. Here he talks to author, journalist, literary critic and chair of the 2016 International Booker Boyd Tonkin.

The event is part of the festival’s programme of Spanish and Latin American literature and culture.