A wildly inventive story collection from legendary film director Pedro Almodovar
The Last Dream brings together for the first time twelve unpublished stories from Almodovar's personal archive, written between the late sixties and the present day. Both a tantalising glimpse into Almodovar's creative mind and a masterclass in how to tell a story, this intimate and mischievous collection reflects Almodovar's obsessions and many of the themes of his cinematic work, spanning genres from autofiction to comedy, parody, pastiche and gothic. The title story, 'The Last Dream', is a beautiful chronicle of the death of Almodovar's mother, and other stories include: a love story between Jesus and Barabbas; a cult film director out in search of painkillers on a bank holiday weekend; the primary version of the film Bad Education; and a gothic tale of a repentant vampire among monks.
In his introduction, Almodovar writes: 'I've been asked to write my autobiography more than once, and I've always refused; it's also been suggested that I let someone else write my biography, but I have always felt somewhat resistant to the idea of a book entirely about me as an individual. 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 cryptic.'
A celebration of the relationship between life and art, fiction and reality from an artist unafraid to write about our most intimate moments, these stories explore desire, mortality, loneliness and the pain and glory of artistic creation, laced with playful humour and a deep love of literature and culture.
Translated by Frank Wynne
