{"product_id":"his-only-son-isbn-9781681370187","title":"His Only Son","description":"The unlikely hero of \u003ci\u003eHis Only Son\u003c\/i\u003e, Bonifacio Reyes, is a romantic and a flautist by vocation—and a failed clerk and kept husband by necessity—who dreams of a novelesque life. Tied to his shrill and sickly wife by her purse strings, he enters timidly into a love affair with Serafina, a seductive second-rate opera singer, encouraged by her manager who mistakes Bonifacio for a potential patron. Meanwhile, Bonifacio’s wife experiences a parallel awakening and in the midst of a long-barren marriage, surprises them both with a son—but is it Bonifacio’s? In the accompanying novella, \u003ci\u003eDoña Berta\u003c\/i\u003e, the heroine of the title, an aged, poor, but well-born woman, forfeits her beloved estate in search of a portrait that may be all that remains of the secret love of her life. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile largely unknown outside of Spain, Leopoldo Alas was one of the most celebrated writers of criticism in nineteenth-century Spain and employed his satirical talents to powerful and humorous effect in fiction. \u003ci\u003eHis Only Son \u003c\/i\u003ewas Alas’s second and final novel, full of characteristic humor, naturalistic detail, descriptive beauty, and moral complexity. His frail and pitiful characters—irrational, emotional actors drawn inexorably toward their foolish fates—are yet multidimensional individuals, often conscious of their own weaknesses and stymied by their very yearnings to be more than the parts they find themselves playing.“\u003ci\u003eHis Only Son\u003c\/i\u003e is the most  intense, the most refined, the most  intellectual, and the most sensual  novel that nineteenth-century  Spanish literature has produced.” —Azorín\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“When I read \u003ci\u003eHis Only Son\u003c\/i\u003e and Doña Berta, I was bowled over by the audacity of the plots, by the   diverse cast of characters, and by Alas’s ability to be entirely  engaged\u003cbr\u003eby his characters.” —Margaret Jull costa, from the introduction\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A delight to read.” —\u003ci\u003eA Common Reader \u003c\/i\u003eblog\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A Flaubert-type novel [that] displays the author’s power of psychological analysis.” —Harvey L. Johnson, \u003ci\u003eThe South Central Bulletin\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eLeopoldo Alas\u003c\/b\u003e (1852–1901) was the son of a government  official, born in Zamora, Spain. He attended the University of Oviedo  and the University of Madrid, receiving a doctorate in law. A novelist  and writer of short stories who adopted the pseudonym Clarín (Bugle),  Alas was one of Spain’s most influential literary critics. He became a  professor of law at the University of Oviedo in 1883 and published his  first and best-known novel, \u003ci\u003eLa Regenta\u003c\/i\u003e, in 1884; his second novel, \u003ci\u003eSu único hijo\u003c\/i\u003e (\u003ci\u003eHis Only Son\u003c\/i\u003e), was published in 1890. He died in Oviedo at the age of forty-nine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMargaret Jull Costa\u003c\/b\u003e has been a literary translator for nearly thirty years and has  translated works by novelists such as Eça de Queiróz, José Saramago,  Javier Marías, and Fernando Pessoa, as well as poets such as Sophia de  Mello Breyner Andresen and Ana Luísa Amaral. She has won various prizes,  most recently the 2015 Marsh Award for Children’s Fiction in  Translation for Bernardo Atxaga’s \u003ci\u003eThe Adventures of Shola\u003c\/i\u003e. In  2013 she was invited to become a Fellow of the Royal Society of  Literature and in 2014 was awarded an Order of the British Empire for  services to literature. In 2015 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by  the University of Leeds.","brand":"NYRB Classics","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304281526501,"sku":"NP9781681370187","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781681370187.jpg?v=1767729084","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/his-only-son-isbn-9781681370187","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}