'Join us on Tuesday 2nd June for a reading party
to celebrate the release of Andrés Barba's new novel, Last Day of a Prior Life.
We'll be receiving a special early release for this event.
Andrés Barba's Such Small Hands is a staff favourite and we can't wait to read Last Day of a Prior Life, which Mariana Enriquez describes as "a ghost story without ghosts".'
– The Paperback Bookshop team
‘A ghost story without ghosts that, beyond the beauty of its form, explores solitude, the twists and turns of our lives, and the unfathomable complexities of affection.’ Mariana Enriquez
While preparing an empty house for sale, a woman encounters an unblinking seven-year-old boy, trapped there from another era, like an insect preserved in amber. Unable to articulate what he needs, the child draws her into an unsettling bond that neither can escape … until they understand what has caused it.
With incredible precision, this deeply disquieting novel weaves together doppelgängers and time loops in the tradition of a classic ghost story. Yet its contemporary sensibility — where lyricism meets cruelty — evokes the dark horror of Shirley Jackson.
From one of the most renowned Spanish-language authors working today, Last Day of a Prior Life is a masterful dissection of human longing and the ties that bind us, even across time itself.
Andrés Barba was first known internationally as a Granta Best Young Spanish Novelist and as the author of Such Small Hands and Luminous Republic. He has been awarded the Torrente Ballester Prize, the Juan March Prize, the Anagrama Essay Prize, the Premio Herralde, and has been the finalist of the Premio Gregor von Rezzori XIII. He is one of the most renowned Spanish authors today.
Robin Myers is a poet and translator. She won the 2025 National Book Award in Translated Literature for We Are Green and Trembling, by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara. Other recent translations include Death Takes Me by Cristina Rivera Garza (co-translated with Sarah Booker), Restoration by Ave Barrera (co-translated with Ellen Jones), and A Father Is Born by Andrés Neuman, among many other works of poetry and prose.
