Description

‘A lot of people lose their way in India . . . it’s a country specially made for that.’

Amid the backstreets, brothels and faded hotels of Bombay, Madras and the old Portuguese port of Goa, a man searches for his lost friend. Xavier has been missing for a year, and the only clues to his disappearance lie with an overworked doctor, a young prostitute and the leader of a strange religious order.

Dreamlike, elusive and profoundly disquieting, Indian Nocturne calls into question the very nature of identity.

Publisher Review

Beautiful, dreamlike -- Salman Rushdie Tabucchi . . . takes his place alongside Irene Nemirovsky, Sandor Marai and Stefan Zweig as one of the great Continental rediscoveries for English-speaking readers * * Daily Telegraph * * Tabucchi writes . . . with an agility of mind and an economy of narrative that pulls the reader along * * Observer * * Fragmented, enigmatic and hypnotising -- Val Hennessy * * Daily Mail * * [Indian Nocturne has] an almost ethereal lightness, which is soul stirring and at the same time emotionally intuitive * * The National * * The joy of this book is in the journey. If you read it don't rush it; it's a book to savour * * A Life in Books * * 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 on PEREIRA MAINTAINS