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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