The book of all loves

In the wake of the Great Blackout, faced with the near-extinction of humanity, a pair of lovers speak to each other.

They parse, with precision, with familiarity, the endless aspects of their love.

Out of their dialogues, piece by piece, a composite image of love takes form, one that moves outwards beyond the realm of relationships and into metaphysics, geology, linguistics, AI.    Years previously, a writer and her husband, a Latin professor, stay in Venice while she works on a text.

As they roam the city, strange occurrences accumulate, signalling that the world around them is heading towards a point of no return.    Blending fiction and essay, poetry and philosophy, Agustín Fernández Mallo’s The Book of All Loves is a startling, expansive work of imaginative agility, one that renders love unfamiliar so as to renew it, and makes the case for hope in the midst of a disintegrating present.