Last Day of a Prior Life is a contemporary ghost story that explores how the past can hold us captive, as a woman encounters a boy with an otherworldly stare in an empty house.
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About Last Day of a Prior Life
While eagerly preparing a house for prospective buyers, a woman finds herself face to face with a strange sight: a seven-year-old boy who doesn’t blink. Seemingly appearing and disappearing before her again and again, he sooner resembles an apparition. But one thing is clear: the boy wants something from her. Choosing to leave her everyday world behind, the woman steps through the looking glass, inadvertently nurturing a disturbing co-dependence and discovering a suspended time, a loop, and another life in the process.
Containing all the elements of a perfect ghost story, Last Day of a Prior Life is a richly atmospheric, disturbing, and dazzling gem of a novel that calls to mind the gothic tales of Shirley Jackson and the fractured realities of Black Mirror. Winner of the Premio Finestres, Barba’s latest demonstrates his exquisite talent for dissecting human intimacy and excavating the links between past and present, while delivering a masterful exploration of human longing and the ties that bind us, even across time itself.
Championed by Edmund White and touted as a “writer of extraordinary talent” by Omar El Akkad, Andrés Barba has been the subject of much critical attention and received numerous honors including the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center Fellowship and Herralde Novel Prize. His last novel, A Luminous Republic, was universally acclaimed by literary stalwarts Colm Tóibín, Idra Novey, and Lauren Beukes, as well as media outlets, including the Boston Globe and the New York Times. Featuring all the hallmarks of award winning literature, Last Day of a Prior Life will continue to build Barba’s reputation in the English world.
Precious, tinged with both horror and beauty, Last Day of a Prior Life inspires a tempest of emotion. Poignantly exploring the hold the past can have on us, as well as how we can heal from it, Barba conjures a hypnotic, haunting daydream that will linger in readers’ memories long after they have turned the final page.
Praise for Last Day of a Prior Life
Last Day of a Prior Life is “A ghost story without ghosts that, beyond its formal elegance, explores loneliness, the cycles in which our lives revolve, and the immeasurable challenges of affection.”—Mariana Enríquez, author of Our Share of Night
“Every now and then, an author not only documents reality, but creates an entirely new one, one that illuminates our darkest feelings. Kafka did it. Bruno Schulz did it. And now [in Last Day of a Prior Life] Spanish writer Andrés Barba has done it too.”—Edmund White, author of A Boy’s Own Story and The Loves of My Life
Last Day of a Prior Life is “Quiet, strange, and deeply reflective.”—Booklist
“Wholly compelling.”—Colm Tóibín, New York Times bestselling author of Brooklyn and Long Island, on A Luminous Republic
“A terrifying masterpiece . . . Andrés is a write of extraordinary talent.”—Omar El Akkad, New York Times bestselling author of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, on A Luminous Republic
“A rapturous fable and a ruinous forecast of the havoc that comes from civil inaction.”—Idra Novey, author of Take What You Need and Ways To Disappear, on A Luminous Republic
“One of the best books I’ve ever read . . . There is an air of magic, black and white, lingering around every page of this epic novel of 192 pages, like gun smoke after a shootout. ”—Edmund White, author of A Boy’s Own Story and The Loves of My Life
“At first this book will scare you, but after that you feel something much deeper, disturbing and luminous.”—Samanta Schweblin, Author of the National Book Award winning Seven Empty Houses, on A Luminous Republic
About Andrés Barba, Author of Last Day of a Prior Life
Andrés Barba is a Spanish writer and translator. He graduated in Hispanic Philology from the Complutense University of Madrid, with a degree in Philosophy. He has taught at Bowdoin College, the Complutense University of Madrid and Princeton University. In 2003 he was a resident at the Spanish Academy in Rome.
Andrés Barba is the award-winning author of numerous books, including Such Small Hands and The Right Intention. He was one of Granta’s Best Young Spanish novelists and received the Premio Herralde for his most recent novel, Luminous Republic, which was translated into over twenty languages. He lives in Argentina.
Translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman, a two-time National Book Award finalist for the translated fiction award, and the winner of several high-profile awards, most recently the Queen Sofia Translation Award for Yuri Herrera’s Season of the Swamp.
Source: Publisher, wikipedia
Publisher: HarperVia | HarperCollins
ISBN Hardcover 9780063352056
Pub Date: Aug 25, 2026
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