num_pages: 480
description: A stunning tale of love gone bad: passion, obsession, sex, and cocaine, all in excess—riveting from start to finish. Rímini splits up with his girlfriend of 12 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. As hard as Rímini tries to forget, Sofía will not let him. 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. Told through a series of flashbacks, this complex and multi-layered novel is a stunning achievement, bringing to mind the works of Nabokov and Proust, while critics have also alluded to Philip Roth and Martin Amis.
language: English
title: The Past
titlecomplete: The Past
genres: Fiction, Latin American Literature, Contemporary, Spanish Literature, Novels
ratings_count: 1016
awards: awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: Premio Herralde de Novela, awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
category: Longlist, awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: Premio Valle-Inclán
category: Nick Caistor
publisher: Harvill Secker