The Last Librarian [Paperback]

Awarded the Alejo Carpentier Award in 2012,The Last Librarianfollows the journey of a writer who has decided, as a way of honoring the artists who have meant the most to him, to visit and deposit a single book within each of the Seven Libraries of the World. Morales???s novel is a profound meditation on the origins and meaning of writing, time, and the act of artistic creation.Following in the steps of the skillful story telling traditions of Scheherazade and Borges, Osdany Morales leads the reader along a meandering path of tales connected through the narrator???s expedition to visit the Seven Libraries of the World. The underlying account of his travels fades to the background as the reader is enticed into each side story, later returning to the surface to maintain the links as he and his stories traverse diverse geographic locations and centuries. Despite the unifying factor, each of the seven stories is a different style (fantasy, metafiction, suspense, chronicle, etc.) As a writer himself, the narrator???s journey takes on additional significance as he is invited into each library under the condition that he leave one of his works to add to the collection. Throughout the stories Morales scatters references to writers, films, philosophies, history, geography, and more.In 2008 he won the International Prize forFiction Casa de Teatroin the Dominican Republic. This second novel from Morales was given an Alejo Carpentier Award and features a story about a writer who visits the seven libraries of the world ??? leaving a new book in each of them. Both Bryerman and Dopico say Morales is an up-and-coming Cuban writer who should definitely be on any bookworm???s radar.