The looming presence of the nearby prison camp – lying just beyond a patch of forest – is the only blot to mar what is otherwise an idyllic life in Buchenwald.
The second novel in Izzo’s acclaimed Marseilles trilogy is a touching tribute to the author’s beloved city, in all its colour and complexity. Fabio Montale is an unwitting hero in this city of melancholy beauty.
“Some Japanese stories end violently. Others never end at all, but only cut away, at the moment of extreme crisis, to a butterfly, or the wind, or the moon.”—Brian Phillips