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 *
[<i>Indian Nocturne </i>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 *
<i>Pereira Maintains</i> 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,
'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.