This new, expanded collection of Antonio Tabucchi's stories collects the best short fiction from the Italian author recognized as one of the masters of the form.
A master of short fiction, Antonio Tabucchi won the Prix Medicis tranger for Indian Nocturne, the Italian PEN Prize for Requiem- A Hallucination, the Aristeion European Literature Prize for Pereira Declares, and was named a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government. Together with his wife, Maria Jose de Lancastre, Tabucchi translated much of the work of Fernando Pessoa into Italian. Tabucchi's works include The Flying Creature of Fra Angelico, The Woman of Porto Pim, and Little Misunderstandings of No Importance (all translated by Tim Parks), Tristano Dies and For Isabel- A Mandala (both translated by Elizabeth Harris, recipient of the National Translation Award), and Time Ages in a Hurry (translated by Martha Cooley and Antonio Romani).
The 22 elegant short stories in this posthumous collection highlight the international perspective, melancholy tone, humor, and compassion of Italian author Tabucchi ... Tabucchi's intelligence and humane perspective shine throughout this thoughtful, noteworthy volume. --Publishers Weekly, starred review
A career-spanning story collection from Tabucchi ... exploring
the liminal spaces between dream and waking, fact and fiction. ...
A fine tribute to a writer defined by his singular command of mood
and mystery. -- Kirkus Reviews Tabucchi's prose creates a
deep, 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... wonderfully thought-provoking
and beautiful.-- Alan Cheuse, NPR's All Things Considered
(for The Flying Creatures of Fra Angelico) Tabucchi's
work has an almost palpable sympathy for the oppressed.--The
New York Times
Tabucchi is a master of the form in imagination, beauty, scope, and
scale even at the tiniest calibration. -Kerri Arsenault, Lit
Hub One could call him a great literary defender of the oppressed
and marginalized (political prisoners or revolutionaries are among
his stock figures), but he does not so much defend them, in the
moralistic, paternalistic sense, as allow them a voice... Tabucchi
delights in the metatheatricality of writing: more often than not
the narrators in this collection are conscious of their role as
storytellers, and are writing or speaking as if to a silent
companion - a position that is filled by the reader. As a result,
even the tamer stories feel on the verges of reality. -- Samuel
Graydon, Times Literary Supplement A surprising tranquility
pervades the stories, and it's to Tabucchi's great credit that they
never feel muted...The melancholy tunes that fill the pages of
Message from the Shadows are enigmas of longing, signals woven in
the air that fade and disappear and leave only hunger in their
wake...Tabucchi's generally incantatory prose here assumes a
heightened air of ritual; the power of inexpressible sorrow becomes
a dark vortex, vaguely barbaric in its strength. -- The
Threepenny Review Tabucchi's stories -- translated from Italian by
Martha Cooley, Frances Frenaye, Elizabeth Harris, Tim Parks,
Antonio Romani, and Janice M. Thresher, and published posthumously
-- drip with longing and, too, with a dreamlike quality that is
tempting to characterize as magical realism. In these stories, the
world as we know it and its author's shadow world are often
indistinguishable -- to the reader's great benefit. -- Thrillist
Praise for Antonio Tabucchi: The book has a mercurial,
dream-like quality that is stunning in its subtlety. Never
heavy-handed, this quiet novel is as beautiful and profound as a
landscape painting.--Mark Haber, Brazos Bookstore for For
Isabel To find one's way through For Isabel is certainly not easy,
but it is rewarding, and its joyful confusion always rests firmly
on the edge of genius, ready to be found.-- Samuel Graydon,
The Times Literary Supplement [For Isabel is] more than
the story of a missing girl; it is history recalled as though in a
dream, hovering briefly, through the combination of Tabucchi's
elegiac prose and Harris's lucid translation, over life and
death.-- Publishers Weekly, Starred Review An
essential testament to Tabucchi's talent, a masterwork written with
diligence and care... The novel is an epitome of Tabucchi's work,
an account of exotic travels and blossoming, abstruse identities, a
dreamlike and ironic limbo... Literary alchemy.-- Javier
Aparicio Maydeu, El Pais for For Isabel What a strange and
wonderful book this is! If, like me, you are interested in
shipwrecks, whales, the Azores and the unique way in which only
literature can bring a location to life, and if you like the
unclassifiable, small works by authors such as Michael Ondaatje and
Italo Calvino -- then have I got the book for you ... Wildly
inventive.-- Minneapolis Star-Tribune for The Women of
Porto Pim
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