Evan Dara
Evan Dara is an American author of four novels and two plays, whose work is often compared to writers such as William Gaddis, Thomas Pynchon, David Foster Wallace, and Richard Powers.
Dara's first novel, The Lost Scrapbook, won the 1995 National Fiction Competition; William T. Vollmann was the final judge. The Washington Post called the book the most accomplished first novel since Gaddis' The Recognitions, from 1955. When the book was published in Spain, arguably the country's leading critic wrote, ‘I believe with all certainty that The Lost Scrapbook deserves to occupy a prominent place in the canon of the American novel.’
The Quarterly Conversation deemed Dara's second novel, The Easy Chain (2008), ‘One of the best novels of the decade.’ Not to be outdone, a significant Spanish critic called it ‘One of the best novels of the century.’ (In 2019, so one decade more!)
Dara's opus three, entitled Flee, from 2013, became the first self-published novel ever to be reviewed in The Times Literary Supplement – even though the book isn't available in Britain. ‘Incredibly rewarding,’ said American lit-site Biblioklept.
Most recently, Permanent Earthquake (2021), was excerpted in the prestigous n+1 magazine, which called it ‘A visionary novel that feels at once timeless and eerily well suited to our ongoing moment,’ while Travel Through Stories stated: ‘A brilliant, brilliant book.’
The Times Literary Supplement called Evan Dara ‘one of the most exciting American novelists writing today,’ while the US's Conversational Reading weighed in with ‘Dara's novels are astonishing – challenging, funny, groundbreaking, stylish, brave. They are big contemporary novels where ambition and execution are both huge and come together perfectly.’
Dara's work has, to date, been published in seven languages, and taught in over two dozen universities around the world. This includes a course on ‘The Great American Novel’, alongside Melville, Hawthorne, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Roth, and Morrison. The Lost Scrapbook was included in an online compendium of one hundred works, fiction and non, called ‘A Postmodern Canon’, beside Kafka, Borges, Garcia Marquez, and Nabokov.
Said esteemed critic Daniel Green: ‘In the audacity of [their] invention...Dara’s novels are arguably the most radically disruptive books in American fiction since, say, Gilbert Sorrentino in a work like Mulligan Stew (1979).’
And while lit website HTMLgiant called Dara ‘The James Joyce of our time,’ eminent Australian critic Emmet Stinson called him ‘The best-kept secret in all of contemporary American literature.’
Dara published his first play, Provisional Biography of Mose Eakins, in 2018. It was translated into Portuguese in 2020.
Rights sold:
Genki Shobo (Japan)
Pálido Fuego (Spain)
Kongress W (Russia)
7Letras (Portugal/Brazil)
het balanseer (Belgium/The Netherlands)
Reviews:
‘Monumental, cunning, heartfelt and unforgiving... Dara shows how a novel can be experimental, yet moral, rule-breaking but emotional, and post-humanist while remaining deeply human. A vast accomplishment.’ Richard Powers
‘Evan Dara’s magnificent novel is crafted as if James Joyce had widened the narrative ear of Ulysses... If this really is Mr. Dara’s first novel, then he is either a young phenom or a well-practiced, reclusive treasure.’ Chelsea Review
‘Powerful, hysterically funny and evocative. Stretches the boundaries of what novels can be and mean.’ The Los Angeles Reader
‘Some have called this the best American novel of the 1990s... Anyone with even a passing interest in the contemporary novel needs to read this book, which is truly a lost classic. This is a great book that deserves a wider readership.’ Known Unknowns
‘Undoubtedly an exceptional literary work [and] a rare exercise of artistic freedom... I believe with all certainty that The Lost Scrapbook deserves to occupy a prominent place in the canon of the American novel.’ Robert Saladrigas, La Vanguardia (Barcelona)
Rights sold:
Pálido Fuego (Spain)
Reviews:
‘One of the best novels of the decade... The magic of his writing and what he accomplishes through it is...manifested in how mesmerizing, hypnotic and just plain readable Evan Dara is.’ The Quarterly Conversation
‘This masterpiece left us drooling for days on end. We couldn't put it down.’ Lowdown Magazine (Germany)
Reviews from Spain:
‘A ruthless portrait of the business world, an expression of melancholy for lost family connections, an essay on all the ways we falsify personal success, plus a reflection on epistemology, truth, lies and our world's last moments of authenticity... Evan Dara's art is a confirmation of everything good in the postmodern novel.’ Détour
‘An artistic delight for exquisite palates... without a doubt, one of the most fascinating novels that you'll read in many years. And this, I swear to you, is no lie.’ Libros Y Literatura
‘A novel that aspires to show the shortcomings and contradictions of an entire era... delving into the subtle forms of prostitution we subject ourselves to without being aware of it... and the effects this has on our relationships, with others and with ourselves... If Dara's first novel, The Lost Scrapbook, was equal in ambition to Pynchon's V., and equal in quality to William Gaddis, here Dara raises the ante (and the bar) still higher.’ Jot Down
‘One of the milestones of the 21st Century novel... It dazzles by the incessant cascade of its innovative stylistic proposals... amazing and brilliant... Yes, The Easy Chain is demanding, but it is not inaccessible.’ Diario16
‘Dara's novels are two very steep mountains. Entailing risks. And to reach their summits you have to cross labyrinthine gorges. But if you do, you'll discover that the final landscape they reserve for you, like the path you traveled to reach them, is immeasurable.’ Diario de Sevilla
Rights sold:
Palido Fuego (Spain)
Odipa Yayınları (Turkey)
Reviews:
‘Evan Dara's first two novels — The Lost Scrapbook (1995) and The Easy Chain (2008) — were dazzling tapestries. Flee is half the length but no less ambitious — an excellent addition to his already impressive oeuvre.’ The Times Literary Supplement
‘Maybe the best novel to aesthetically and philosophically address the economic collapse of '08... Incredibly rewarding...a strong, strong book.’ Biblioklept
Rights sold:
Polyandria (Russia)
Palido Fuego (Spain)
Reviews:
‘A visionary novel that feels at once timeless and eerily well suited to our ongoing moment... Dara's first novel, The Lost Scrapbook, was celebrated by critics and writers including Richard Powers, who called it “monumental, cunning, heartfelt and unforgiving... Dara shows how a novel can be experimental, yet moral, rule-breaking but emotional, and post-humanist while remaining deeply human.” This description applies equally to Permanent Earthquake.’ n+1
’This is twenty-first-century American writing... Permanent Earthquake's unsparing intensity... requires total commitment to a form and voice that was never outmoded or transcended... Only a writer outside the circle of conventional publishing would have the courage to attempt this... [Yet] there's a humanist reading of the novel, in persistent tension with the created world that's not just shattered but perpetually shattering.’ The Baffler
A play in progress by Evan Dara. The play ‘Mose Eakins’ calls for dozens of roles, most appearing briefly. A guide to performing the play with eight (or more) actors is available. Please contact us.
Rights sold:
Palido Fuego (Spain)
Qorpus (Brazil)
Reviews
‘A vast and profound book that is barely a hundred pages long... portraying with pristine light the social maelstrom that afflicts us. Do not miss this allegory of our time, in which our human lives encounter the provisional nature of their existence.’ Zenda (Spain)
‘Amazing... A unique, highly intelligent work that elicits great humor... and that deftly shows things that are relevant to all of us... In the same way that David Foster Wallace showed us the privatization of time, Dara shows that this has happened to language and meaning... If you want to cut your teeth on Dara, read this play... I highly, highly recommend it.’ Leaf By Leaf
A book tunnel in Prague’s library. Petr Kratochvil