The Void Captain's tale
A love story of sorts set in a distant future.  The narrator of the novel is captain of an interstellar ship ferrying passengers from a complex sybaritic culture.  He writes in an elegant farrago of various European languages, though Spinrad makes sure an English monoglot will have no trouble.  The other main character is the ship's pilot, who is in love with the void.  A difficult, in parts unsuccessful, but overall brilliant, tragic, funny novel about sex, love, and transcendence.

Nominated for the Nebula and Locus awards.
language, sex, transcendence, science fiction, Fiction, general
Norman Spinrad
Norman Spinrad is a science fiction icon and the author of more than twenty novels which have been translated into over a dozen languages. His 1969 novel, Bug Jack Barron, was nominated for the Hugo and Nebula Awards and his short fiction collection, The Star-Spangled Future, was a National Book Award finalist. He has also written screenplays for American television series, including the original Star Trek. He lives in New York.