Borges and the Eternal Orang-Utans

Description

A hilarious spoof on literary/academic conferences, and a brilliant 'Borgesian' mystery. Vogelstein is a loner who has always lived among books. Suddenly, fate grabs hold of his insignificant life and carries him off to Buenos Aires, to a conference on Edgar Allan Poe, the inventor of the modern detective story. There Vogelstein meets his idol, Jorge Luis Borges, and for reasons that a mere passion for literature cannot explain, he finds himself at the centre of a murder investigation that involves arcane demons, the mysteries of the Kabbala, the possible destruction of the world, and the Elizabethan magus John Dee's 'Eternal Orang-utan', which would end up by writing all the known books in the cosmos.

Luis Fernando Verissimo is one of Brazil's most popular writers thanks to his satirical columns in the national weekly Veja. He is also a celebrated novelist and cartoonist, and he plays the saxophone in a jazz band. His novel The Club of Angels was published by Harvill.

An elegantly constructed caper * Daily Telegraph * Verrisimo's pleasure in his own absurd intertextual universe is infectious * Times Literary Supplement * A true literary mystery in its own right, as well as a homage to Borges * Financial Times *