Chromos

This article is about the novel. For the printing technique, see Chromolithography.

Chromos is the second novel of Spanish-born American writer Felipe Alfau (1902–1999), written in 1948 and published in 1990.

First edition

Composition and publication

Alfau described how he wrote the novel: "In the office between one document and another, I would write a paragraph or two. I then pasted together the whole book, as in a collage."^[1] He completed it in 1948, but not published until 1990^[2] when Dalkey Archive Press released the first edition.^[3]

Reception and legacy

The novel was nominated for a National Book Award^[3] in 1990.^[2]

Chromos had an influence on the works of fellow Spanish-American writer Eduardo Lago, whose Llámame Brooklyn shares stylistic, structural, and thematic similarities with Alfau's novel, such as a novel-within-a-novel.^[4]