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Only Smoke

Only Smoke

by Juan José Millás

Translated by Thomas Bunstead and Daniel Hahn

Published by: Bellevue Literary Press

Imprint: Bellevue Literary Press

176 Pages, 5.50 x 8.25 in

Paperback
9781954276444
Published: May 2025

$17.99

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Description
Authors
Praise

A son follows the breadcrumbs through a volume of Grimms’ Fairy Tales in search of his estranged father

On his eighteenth birthday, Carlos receives a strange gift: his father, whom he never knew, has died and left him his apartment. As he goes through the man’s belongings, Carlos comes across a manuscript that tells the unsettling story of a secret affair, a love child, and a butterfly. Is this a confession or pure fiction?

As Carlos begins to make the apartment his own, he immerses himself in the tales of the Brothers Grimm left on the nightstand, embarking on a journey that will bring him closer to his father and teach him how to navigate the invisible borders between reality and fantasy, sanity and madness.

At once wildly unpredictable, darkly entertaining, and surprisingly tender, Only Smoke is an ode to the imagination and the transformative power of literature.

Juan José Millás is a bestselling Spanish author and recipient of Spain’s most prestigious literary prizes: the Premio Nadal, Premio Planeta, and Premio Nacional de Narrativa. He is the author of several short story collections and works of nonfiction as well as over a dozen novels, including three published in North America: From the Shadows, Let No One Sleep, and Only Smoke. A regular contributor to El País, Millás has also won many awards for his journalism. He lives in Madrid.

Daniel Hahn is a writer, editor and translator with over one hundred books to his name. His translations (from Portuguese, Spanish and French) include fiction from Europe, Africa and the Americas and non-fiction by writers ranging from Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago to Brazilian footballer Pelé. Recent books include the new Oxford Companion to Children's Literature and translations of Julián Fuks’ Resistance and Occupation . He is a former chair of the Society of Authors and is presently on the board of a number of organisations that deal with literature, literacy, translation and free expression. In 2021 Daniel was made an OBE for his services to literature.

Praise for Only Smoke
“Millás demolishes notions of the quotidian while shining the brightest light on everyday occurrences. Imagination and reality coexist, and the dive into the fairyland of the Brothers Grimm becomes tense, thrilling, and incredibly revealing. Only Smoke is a work of genius strokes, of daring tenderness where a hidden horror lies, lingering to shatter the most precious. It is a wondrous gift of many layers.”—award–winning filmmaker Antonio Méndez Esparza, director of Something Is About to Happen, based on Juan José Millás’s Let No One Sleep
Select Praise for the Novels of Juan José Millás
“Deceptively ethereal. . . . Dark and startling.” —Wall Street Journal
“Seductive. . . . Riveting.” —World Literature Today
“Uproarious and unnerving in equal measure.” —Thrillist
“Hilarious and unique.” —Crime Reads
“Spectacularly surreal and cerebral.” —Asymptote Journal
“Wonderfully absurd.” —Litro Magazine
“Impossible to put down.” —Shelf Unbound
“Darkly iridescent, utterly captivating.” —Publishers Weekly
“Memorable.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Masterly.” —Library Journal

Only Smoke

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