Unavailable to English readers for more than 50 years, The Island of Second Sight is a literary tour de force, a Bola簽o-esque sage of World War II. First published in Germany in 1953,
it became a bestseller and has never been out of print. It is the fictionalized autobiography of the author and his wife�� years on Mallorca in the early 1930s. Low on money, they seek
shelter in a brothel for bullfighters. Narrator Vigoleis is an inventor who doubles as a writer-secretary, and the couple befriends literary figures and Jews, they make enemies of the Nazis,
and then the Spanish Civil War erupts, presenting new challenges to their escape plan.
Thelen is a wonderfully gifted narrator, with burlesque humor and a delightful cynicism. The Island of Second Sight, often compared to Don Quixote, is a vivacious, furious, and
funny book that will enrich and surprise.
