Bartleby & Co.
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 | |
| Author | Enrique Vila-Matas |
|---|---|
| Original title | Bartleby y compañía |
| Translator | Jonathan Dunne |
| Language | Spanish |
| Publisher | Editorial Anagrama |
Publication date | 1 February 2000 |
| Publication place | Spain |
Published in English | 2004 |
| Pages | 184 |
| ISBN | 978-84-339-2449-0 |
Bartleby & Co. (Spanish: Bartleby y compañía) is a 2000 novel by the Spanish writer Enrique Vila-Matas.
A Spanish office worker wants to be a writer but struggles to follow up his obscure first book. He takes a sick leave and starts to write footnotes to a non-existing text. He comments on writers whose careers stalled, such as Herman Melville, Robert Walser, Felipe Alfau and J. D. Salinger. He turns the improductive central characters from Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener" and Hugo von Hofmannsthal's "Letter from Lord Chandos" into role models. He goes through various reasons to not write.[1]