Traveller of the Century

Description

In post-Napoleonic Germany, a traveller on his way to Dessau stops off for a night in the mysterious city of Wandernburg. He intends to move on the following day, but the town begins to ensnare him with its strange, shifting geography. After befriending an old organ grinder and falling for the daughter of a local merchant, he soon finds it impossible to leave. A novel of philosophy and love, politics and waltzes, history and the here-and-now, Traveller of the Century is a journey into the soul of Europe, penned by one of the most exciting South-American writers of our time.

Andres Neuman was born in 1977 in Buenos Aires and now lives in Granada, Spain. He was selected one of Granta's Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists, and included in Hay's Bogota 39 list. He has published numerous novels, short stories, essays and poetry collections. Traveller of the Century won the 2009 Alfaguara Prize and the National Critics Prize. Pushkin Press will publish his latest novel, Hablar Solos, in 2014.

A beautiful, accomplished novel: as ambitious as it is generous, as moving as it is smart The Guardian A big, utterly captivating murder mystery and love story, full of history and politics and the hottest sex in contemporary fiction The Telegraph A work of true beauty and scintillating intelligence by a writer of prodigious talents... books as stimulating, erudite and humane as this do not come along very often The Independent The literature of the twenty-first century will belong to Neuman and a few other blood brothers of his -- Roberto Bolano Very few novels in world literature can build up an atmosphere as deftly and convincingly as the Traveller of the Century has done. This is a wonderful novel of ideas. It is a story of love, loneliness and journeys, spiritual and intellectual. Andres Neuman's story will envelop you like a morning fog and when you have finished reading, when the fog dissolves, you might see the world differently. Every year hundreds of books are published but rarely comes a book that reminds us of why we loved reading in the first place, that innermost quest for words and dreams. Traveller of the Century is a literary gem. -- Elif Shafak Rarely comes a novel that blends poetry, history, philosophy, semantics, politics, a murder mystery - and love, that too - with such skill... Neuman takes his readers on a literary pilgrimage, back to the essence, and reminds us why we loved stories so much even as little children: the ability and the freedom to be elsewhere, anywhere, everywhere -- Elif Shafak [Traveller of the Century] so delighted and captivated the jury that it deserved public recognition -- Boyd Tonkin Independent An all-encompassing reinvention of the 19th-century novel through the knowing eyes of the 21st... contains - jurors concurred with relish - some of the best sex in fiction of our own century -- Maya Jaggi, chair of IMPAC Award judging panel Guardian