Pereira Maintains

Antonio Tabucchi (Author)
Antonio Tabucchiwas born in Pisa, Italy in 1943. His critically acclaimed novels and short story collections includeLittle Misunderstandings of NoImportance,Requiem: A HallucinationandPereira Maintains, which won the Premio Campiello, Premio Viareggio and the Aristeion Prize amongst others. Tabucchi was professor at the University of Siena, and also taught at Bard College in New York, the Ecole de Hautes Etudes and the Collège de France in Paris. He died in Lisbon, his adopted home, in 2012.

Patrick Creagh (Translator)
Patrick Creagh(1930-2012) was a British poet, translator and academic. He won the John Florio Prize in 1972 for his translation of theSelected Poemsof Giuseppe Ungaretti and in 1990 forDanubeby Claudio Magris andBlind Argusby Gesualdo Bufalino.

Mysterious, menacing, enthralling and mind-bending ... a masterpiece of compression
Pereira Maintainsis small only in size. Its themes are great ones?courage, betrayal, fidelity, love, corruption; and its treatment of them is subtle, skillful, and clear. It's so clear, in fact, that you can see a very long way down, into the heart of a flawed but valiant human being, into the sickness of a nation, into the depths of political evil. It's the most impressive novel I've read for years, and one of the very few that feels truly necessary
Gripping and unexpected
Brilliant ... you'll go on thinking about the characters for weeks
A work in the high aesthetic mode, a historical novel cast in delicately evocative prose and filled with witty references to the great figures of modern European literature. In it Italians could examine their political consciences through an artful image of another country's past. The pleasures to be had fromPereira Maintainsare rich and varied, but best of all it's very enjoyable
Tabucchi's prose creates a deep, near-profound and sometimes heart-wrenching nostalgia and constantly evokes the pain of recognizing the speed of life's passing which everyone knows but few have the strength to accept
A stunningly good novel, and it goes on getting better in one's head after one has stopped reading it - it works as anexperience- something that has happened to one, which is of course the proof of great writing
A brilliant, profound book that also manages to be a thriller