  We investigate the non-equilibrium relaxation dynamics of a one dimensional
system of interacting spinless fermions near the XXZ integrable point. We
observe two qualitatively different regimes: close to integrability and for low
energies the relaxation proceeds in two steps (prethermalization scenario),
while for large energies and/or away from integrability the dynamics develops
in a single step. When the integrability breaking parameter is below a certain
finite threshold and the energy of the system is sufficiently low the lifetime
of the metastable states increases abruptly by several orders of magnitude,
resembling the physics of glassy systems. This is reflected in a sudden jump in
the relaxation timescales. We present results for finite but large systems and
for large times compared to standard numerical methods. Our approach is based
on the construction of equations of motion for one- and two-particle
correlation functions using projection operator techniques.
