A marvelous novel by one of Spain's most important contemporary authors, in which a clerk in a Barcelona office takes us on a romping tour of world literature.

In Bartleby & Co., an enormously enjoyable novel, Enrique Vila-Matas tackles the theme of silence in literature: the writers and non-writers who, like the scrivener Bartleby of the Herman Melville story, in answer to any question or demand, replies: "I would prefer not to." Addressing such "artists of refusal" as Robert Walser, Robert Musil, Arthur Rimbaud, Marcel Duchamp, Herman Melville, and J. D. Salinger, Bartleby & Co. could be described as a meditation: a walking tour through the annals of literature. Written as a series of footnotes (a non-work itself), Bartleby embarks on such questions as why do we write, why do we exist? The answer lies in the novel itself: told from the point of view of a hermetic hunchback who has no luck with women, and is himself unable to write, Bartleby is utterly engaging, a work of profound and philosophical beauty.

恩里克•比拉-马塔斯（Enrique Vila-Matas）是西班牙目前最重要的作家。目前已经出版了近三十部著作，体裁包括短篇、小说、随笔和论文集。2000年之前，他的文学声誉主要局限于西语世界、法国、意大利、葡萄牙和巴西等地。但随着《巴托比症候群》的成功，比拉-马塔斯逐渐被其他语言国家的读者接纳，影响力迅速扩大，他的作品已被翻译十余种语言在全球发行，并被媒体看作近年来诺贝尔文学奖的又一热门人选。

2013年，法国重要的文学期刊《文学杂志》将比拉-马塔斯与诺贝尔奖获得者莫言、爱丽斯•门罗、帕慕克等诺贝尔文学奖得主一起并列为当今最具影响力的作家之一。

比拉-马塔斯还和波拉尼奥私交甚好，波拉尼奥甚至断言：“在当今的西班牙文坛上，比拉-马塔斯无人能及。”比拉-马塔斯还被波拉尼奥以一个角色写进了短篇集《地球上最后的夜晚》中。

西班牙著名导演阿尔莫多瓦也说过自己最钟爱比拉-马塔斯的小说。