Fictional authors, authors of fictions

In a scene in Dublinesque Riba is walking with his friend Ricardo down Calle Mallorca in Barcelona. Ricardo is “the world authority on writers such as Andrew Breen and Derek Hobbs, modest Irish writers...” Ricardo himself is the author of an autobiographical book, The Exception of My Parents. Ricardo and Riba are old friends. Ricardo’s son is named Samuel, after Riba whose given name is Samuel. Ricardo lives close to La Central (a bookstore) which the astute reader will naturally connect with The Center, the fictional essay by Vilém Vok about New York. (Calle My-york-a?)

In this scene, Ricardo asks Riba “if he’s read Larry O’Sullivan’s poems yet. Riba doesn’t even know who this O’Sullivan might be, he’s usually only interested in writers he’s at least heard of; he always has this feeling that any others are made up.”

This is a wink to the reader who continually is encountering the names of writers in Dublinesque that he has never heard of. Andrew Breen and Derek Hobbs, the modest Irish writers for example. And Vilém Vok. I’ve made a list of the writers mentioned in Dublinesque. Can you spot who are the authors of fictions and who are the fictional authors?

Fleur Jaeggy, Jean Echenoz, Philip Larkin, Vilém Vok, Andrew Breen, Derek Hobbs, Larry O’Sullivan, Brendan Behan, Maurice Blanchot, Julien Gracq, Philip Sollers, Julia Kristeva, Gary Romain, Michel Houellebecq, Arto Paasilinna, Hart Craine, John Banville, Augusto Monterroso, Hugo Claus, Philip K Dick, Robert Walser, Stanislav Lem, James Joyce, Marguerite Duras, W.G. Sebald, Saul Bellow, Martin Amis, and George Perec.