Tirant Lo Blanc

First published in the Catalan language in Valencia in 1490, Tirant lo Blanc ("The White Tyrant") is a sweeping epic of chivalry and high adventure. With great precision and verve, Martorell narrates land and sea battles, duels, hunts, banquets, political maneuverings, and romantic conquests. Reviewing the first modern Spanish translation in 1969 (Franco had ruthlessly suppressed the Catalan language and literature), Mario Vargas Llosa hailed the epic's author as "the first of that lineage of God-supplanters -- Fielding, Balzac, Dickens, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Joyce, Faulkner -- who try to create in their novels an all-encompassing reality."