Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) is the towering intellectual giant of early twentieth-century Spain. He wrote novels, plays, poetry and many essays, but is best remembered for his fictional works and for his major philosophical meditation on the nature of existence.
Abel Sanchez, first published in 1917, is perhaps Unamuno's most intense expression of the tragic sense. It is the story of one man's suffering, born of his obsessive envy of his friend and the consequences of this for him and for those around him. The novel explores themes of identity, personal insecurity, inner and outer relationships, and otherness - dissected with an intensity and a passion that can leave no reader unaffected. John Macklin's edition provides a new English translation alongside the Spanish text, together with a substantial introduction.