Tabucchi has the touch of the true magician, who astonishes us by never trying too hard for his subtle, elusive, and remarkable effects.

The San Francisco Examiner

New paperback edition

The Edge of the Horizon

by Antonio Tabucchi

Antonio Tabucchi’s The Edge of the Horizon is the story of a very unimportant death. Late one night, the body of a young man is delivered to the morgue of an Italian town. The next day’s newspapers report that he was killed in a police raid, and that he went by the obviously false name “Carlo Nobodi.” Spino, the morgue attendant on duty at the time, becomes obsessed with tracing the identity of the corpse: “Why do you want to know about him?” asks a local priest. “Because he is dead and I’m alive,” replies Spino. Antonio Tabucchi is a master of ambiguity and irony, an Italian writer as subtle as Calvino, as inventive as Eco. In this spare yet densely packed cautionary tale, Tabucchi reminds us (in his Author’s Note) that it is impossible to reach the edge of the horizon since it always recedes before us, but suggests that some people like the philosopher Spinoza (and his namesake Spino) “carry the horizon with them in their eyes.”

Paperback(published Aug, 27 2015)

ISBN
9780811224512
Price US
14.95
Price CN
16.95
Trim Size
5 x 8

Clothbound(published Aug, 27 2015)

ISBN
9780811211123
Portrait of Antonio Tabucchi

Antonio Tabucchi

Contemporary Italian writer and academic

Tabucchi has the touch of the true magician, who astonishes us by never trying too hard for his subtle, elusive, and remarkable effects.

The San Francisco Examiner

Ruminative, elegiac and mordantly funny, Mr. Tabucchi’s prose conjures a state between waking and dreaming.

The New York Times