Pereira Maintains
Antonio Tabucchi
“It was the twenty-fifth of July Nineteenth Hundred and Thirty-Eight, and Lisbon was glittering in the azure purity of an Atlantic breeze, Pereira maintains”
Available as Paperback, eBook, Downloadable audio
The much lauded modern classic and international bestseller, introduced by Mohsin Hamid
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER INTRODUCED BY MOHSIN HAMID
‘The most impressive novel I’ve read for years’ PHILIP PULLMAN
‘Stunning’ DIANA ATHILL
In the sweltering summer of 1938, with Lisbon in the grip of Portugal’s fascist dictatorship, out of nowhere a young man arrives on an elderly widower’s doorstep. Lonely and overweight, Dr Pereira lives a quiet, monotonous existence. But when the charismatic Monteiro Rossi bursts into his life, everything changes. Seeing in him the son he never had, Pereira strikes up an unlikely alliance that will result in his political awakening and a devastating act of rebellion. This is his testimony.
“Pereira Maintains is small only in size. Its themes are great ones - courage, betrayal, fidelity, love, corruption; and its treatment of them is subtle, skilful, 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”
Philip Pullman
See more reviews
“A brilliant, profound book that also manages to be a thriller”
Roddy Doyle
“Brilliant … you’ll go on thinking about the characters and the way it’s written for weeks”
guardian
“Every word of Mohsin Hamid’s introduction is true: it’s a stunningly good novel, and it goes on getting better in one’s head after one has stopped reading it - it works as an experience - something that has happened to one, which is of course, the proof of great writing.”
Diana Athill
“Gripping and unexpected”
the Times
Antonio Tabucchi
Antonio Tabucchi was born in Pisa in 1943. Tabucchi authored twenty critically acclaimed novels and short-story collections, nine of which have been translated into English, together with numerous essays and plays. Twice shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize, he received many prestigious awards, including the Prix Médicis étranger for Indian Nocturne and the Premio Campiello, the Premio Viareggio and the Aristeion Prize for Pereira Maintains. Tabucchi was Emeritus professor at the University of Siena, and also taught at Bard College in New York, the École de Hautes Études and the Collège de France in Paris. He died in 2012.
