Vicenzo Fontano, the elderly owner of a bookshop, looks back over their conjoined lives on the eve of its closure for redevelopment by greedy speculators. Political and cultural dissidents, banned books, cameos by André Breton and Jorge Luis Borges, the span of Spain’s C20th history – all haunt this clever, sensitive, winding narrative. Translated from Galician. By the author of other fine novels including All is Silence and The Carpenter’s Pencil.
