Tristano Dies A Life [Paperback]

It is a sultry August at the very end of the twentieth century, and Tristano is dying. A hero of the Italian Resistance, Tristano has called a writer to his bedside to listen to his life story, though, really, “you don’t tell a life…you live a life, and while you’re living it, it’s already lost, has slipped away.” Tristano Dies, one of Antonio Tabucchi’s major novels, is a vibrant consideration of love, war, devotion, betrayal, and the instability of the past, of storytelling, and what it means to be a hero.Winner of the 2016 ALTA National Translation Award

[S]triking and slippery... Tristano's philosophizing is oak-solid, engaging, and often black-humored... Tristano is a great admirer of Borges, and this book evokes his wordplay as well as his eagerness to manipulate time and storytelling like taffy. An admirable if challenging reworking of the overworked themes of war-hero tales. — Kirkus Reviews

Tristano muore is a dark meditation on the approach of death in what he portrays as the difficult, even humiliating context of Italian culture today. Sometimes bitter but also frequently lyrical, this latest book by Tabucchi is deeply skeptical about the power of art to console the pangs of our mortality. Nevertheless, Tristano muore is a powerfully engaging and beautifully written novel that may come in time to rank as one of this author's best. -- Charles Klopp,World Literature Today 

Gorgeous if a challenge for those who want things plain, this will please smart readers ready to applaud the energized imagination of the late Italian master.
— Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal Reviews


More Praise for Tabucchi:

Tabucchi's work has an almost palpable sympathy for the oppressed. -- The New York Times

[Tabucchi's] prose creates a deep, near-profound and sl3+