Description

Making his English language debut, the iconoclastic, two-time Academy award-winning writer and director reveals his singular mind as never before in this collection of twelve remarkable stories spanning memoir, comedy, autofiction, parody, pastiche, and gothic fiction.

With this debut collection, film legend Pedro Almodóvar delivers a tantalizing glimpse into his world, formed by twelve stories carefully selected from his personal writings dating from the late ‘60s to the present. Almodóvar writes: “I’ve been asked to write my autobiography more than once, and I’ve always refused. . . . I’ve never kept a diary, and whenever I’ve tried, I’ve never made it to page two; in a sense, then, this book represents something of a paradox. It might be best described as a fragmentary autobiography, incomplete and a little enigmatic.”

Each entry reflects Almodóvar's most intimate obsessions, as well as his evolution as an artist. In the title story, “The Last Dream,” Almodóvar reflects on the death of his mother. Other entries in the collection include a love story between Jesus and Barabbas, a story of retribution that formed the basis for the film Bad Education, a manic adventure about a film director searching for painkillers on a bank holiday weekend, and a gothic tale centered around a repentant vampire.

Translated from the Spanish by Frank Wynne

About the Author

Pedro Almodóvar is a Spanish film director and screenwriter whose more than two dozen films include Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, All About My Mother, and Talk to Her. Almodóvar has received two Academy Awards, five BAFTA Awards, two Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, nine Goya Awards, the French Legion of Honour, the Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts, the European Film Academy Achievement in World Cinema Award and the Golden Lion.