EDUARDO LALO is a writer, essayist, video artist, and photographer from Puerto Rico. He is the author of ten Spanish-language books, including Los países invisibles and El deseo del lápiz. His novel Simone won the Rómulo Gallegos Prize in 2013; it was published in English by the University of Chicago Press in 2015. He is a professor at the University of Puerto Rico.

SUZANNE JILL LEVINE is a renowned translator and professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she directs the Translation Studies doctoral program. The general editor of the works of Jorge Luis Borges for Penguin Classics, she is author of the literary biography Manuel Puig and the Spider Woman, a work on the poetics of translation, The Subversive Scribe: Translating Latin American Fiction, and many translations.

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637

The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London

© Ediciones Corregidor, 2013

English translation © 2017 by Suzanne Jill Levine

All rights reserved. Published 2017.

La inutilidad first published by Ediciones Callejón, San Juan, 2004.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.

Printed in the United States of America

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ISBN-13: 978-0-226-20779-7 (paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-20765-0 (e-book)

DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226207650.001.0001

Published by arrangement with Ediciones Corregidor S.A.I.C. y E., Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lalo, Eduardo, 1960– author. | Levine, Suzanne Jill, translator.

Title: Uselessness : a novel / Eduardo Lalo ; translated by Suzanne Jill Levine.

Other titles: Inutilidad. English

Description: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2017.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017021801 | ISBN 9780226207797 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780226207650 (ebook)

Classification: LCC PQ7440.L29 I8813 2017 | DDC 863/.64—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017021801

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).