'A novelist of immense power ... uncompromising and original' Colm Toibin

'I can feel the passage of time, as though it were coursing through my veins, along with my blood...'

One June day in 1955 Alejandra, last of a noble yet decaying Argentinian dynasty, shoots her father, locks herself up with his body, and sets fire to them both. What caused this act of insanity? Does the answer lie with Martin, her troubled lover, Bruno, the writer who worshipped her mother, or with her father Fernando himself, demonic creator of the strange 'Report on the Blind'? Their lives entwine in Ernesto Sabato's dark epic of passion, philosophy and paranoia in Buenos Aires.

'Bewitched, baroque, monumental' Newsweek

Sabato's masterpiece of obsessive love and murder in 1950s Buenos Aires, new to Penguin Modern Classics.

About the Author
Ernesto Sabato (Author)
Ernesto Sabato was born in Argentina in 1911. He earned a PhD in physics before relocating to Paris. After World War II, he lost faith in science and began writing fiction, although he would burn much of his work. His three published novels are The Tunnel (1948), his masterpiece On Heroes and Tombs (1961) and The Angel of Darkness (1974). He also led the commission investigating those who disappeared during Argentina's Dirty War of the 1970s. Sabato died in 2011, two months before his 100th birthday.

Helen Lane (Translator)
Helen Lane was a renowned translator of Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian literary texts into English. She was twice awarded the PEN Translation Prize.



Reviews
A book with some claim to be the first major set-piece in that carnival of fictional fireworks which mesmerized Latin America throughout the next decade. It offers a rich motherlode of imagery, language and haunting scenes -- Salman Rushdie
Bewitched, baroque, monumental * Newsweek *
A novelist of immense power ... uncompromising and original -- Colm Toibin * Guardian *



Book Information
ISBN 9780141985862
Author Ernesto Sabato
Format Paperback
Page Count 480
Imprint Penguin Classics
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 348g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 26mm