The Land at the End of the World: A Novel

by Antonio Lobo Antunes, Margaret Jull Costa (Translator)

Overview

"Brilliant…harrowing…Packs the impact of an exploding mortar shell." —Kai Maristed, Los Angeles Times

In the tradition of William Faulkner and Gabriel García Márquez, one of the twentieth century’s most original literary voices offers "kaleidoscopic visions of a modern Portugal scarred by its Fascist past and its bloody colonial wars in Africa" (Paris Review). Hailed as a masterpiece of world literature, The Land at the End of the World—in an acclaimed translation by Margaret Jull Costa—recounts the anguished tale of a Portuguese medic haunted by memories of war. Like the Ancient Mariner who will tell his tale to anyone who listens, the narrator’s evening unfolds like a fever dream that is both tragic and haunting. The result is one of the great war novels of the modern age.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393342338
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	06/25/2012
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	226
Sales rank:	576,827
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

António Lobo Antunes, born in 1942 in Benfica, is considered to be Portugal's greatest living writer. The author of more than twenty novels, including What Can I Do When Everything's On Fire?, he has won many awards and makes his home in Lisbon.

Margaret Jull Costa, who has translated Javier Marías and José Saramago, lives in England.

Editorial Reviews

[Antunes] has created a memorably unhinged narrator, and [Costa] manages to capture, perfectly and faithfully, the bitter, hallucinatory and increasingly desperate tone of his monologue.--Larry Rohter "New York Times"

Lobo Antunes crafts macabre fever dreams as if possessed by an abler Poe, and few other novelists have his Bellovian ability to see both deeply and minutely, to render the world, the fallen world, as if never rendered before.--William Giraldi "Daily Beast"

Read António Lobo Antunes' The Land at the End of the World, and you, like the protagonist, may never forget the hallucinatory depravity, degradation and corruption of an unjust war.--Kai Maristed "Los Angeles Times"

Magnificent prose, dense with striking and unexpected imagery...I was so seized by the novel's spirit that I was motivated to turn to my own. I wanted to imitate Lobo Antunes, and I failed.--Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer

From the Publisher

"[Antunes] has created a memorably unhinged narrator, and [Costa] manages to capture, perfectly and faithfully, the bitter, hallucinatory and increasingly desperate tone of his monologue."

New York Times - Larry Rohter

"Lobo Antunes crafts macabre fever dreams as if possessed by an abler Poe, and few other novelists have his Bellovian ability to see both deeply and minutely, to render the world, the fallen world, as if never rendered before."

Daily Beast - William Giraldi

"Magnificent prose, dense with striking and unexpected imagery…I was so seized by the novel's spirit that I was motivated to turn to my own. I wanted to imitate Lobo Antunes, and I failed."

Viet Thanh Nguyen

"Read António Lobo Antunes' The Land at the End of the World, and you, like the protagonist, may never forget the hallucinatory depravity, degradation and corruption of an unjust war."

Los Angeles Times - Kai Maristed

Hugely honored abroad—he's won the France Culture, Juan Rulfo, and Jerusalem prizes, aside from prizes in his native Portugal—Lobo Antunes is making a name for himself here among the cognoscenti. This work, freshly transalted by the redoubtable Margaret Jull Costa, features a narrator just back from fighting in Angola who feels compelled to confess all he has seen and done to a nameless lover. Recommend to your smart readers.

Library Journal