Un homme désespérément normal, une vieille femme qui prépare avec soin son enterrement, un pays inondé de son plein gré, un gagnant de loterie introuvable, une femme sans amis qui n'aime que les oiseaux. Obsession des fiches, goût désespéré de l'ordre, manie de la sécurité, amour de la loi ..
Cela se passe à Porto. Un vieux gitan, Manolo, fait une macabre découverte : un corps décapité. Où est passée la tête de la victime ? Qui l'a assassinée ? Qui avait intérêt à empêcher l'identification du cadavre ? Un journal populaire de Lisbonne va dépêcher un enquêteur sur place, le jeune Firmino, étudiant en lettres. Commence alors une sorte de faux polar à portée métaphysique, notamment sous l'impulsion de l'avocat Don Fernando, dit Loton, un homme cultivé, bizarre, excentrique même, d'esprit à la fois anarchiste et aristocratique. L'avocat pointe les énigmes, amorce des hypothèses, développe ses théories de la justice et son obsession de la Norme juridique. Et Firmino poursuit son enquête, qui finit par impliquer la police. Un roman surprenant, une réflexion aiguë sur les abus de pouvoir, sur l'illégalité, sur la xénophobie qui revient. Bref, les infamies de l'Europe contemporaine. Antonio Tabucchi's new novel The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro continues the experiment so successfully begun with his Pereira Declares (New Directions, 1994) -- a European best-seller and winner of the prestigious Aristeion European Literature Prize in 1997. Tabucchi has now written a thriller, but one with a subtle intellectual depth not usual in that genre. The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro intriguingly reflects on current social issues: crime, police corruption, yellow journalism, and the courts -- both of the law and of public opinion. Tabucchi hooks the reader on page one of this book and the story advances with electric and unflagging suspense. A gypsy discovers a headless body; Firmino, a young journalist who writes for a scandal-sheet, takes up the case; the headless corpse turns out to be that of one Damasceno Monteiro, an employee at an import-export company who, having stumbled upon a heroin smuggling ring at his work, had stolen a drug shipment; and, the police are supressing evidence -- all the stuff of familiar daily news, here made riveting in the hands of a rare and brilliant writer.
Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters
Fragments is an event—an unforgettable book that will redefine one of the greatest icons of the twentieth century and that, nearly fifty years after her death, will definitively reveal Marilyn Monroe's humanity.Marilyn's image is so universal that we can't help but believe we know all there is to know of her. Every word and gesture made headlines and garnered controversy. Her serious gifts as an actor were sometimes eclipsed by her notoriety—and by the way the camera fell helplessly in love with her.Beyond the headlines—and the too-familiar stories of heartbreak and desolation—was a woman far more curious, searching, witty, and hopeful than the one the world got to know. Now, for the first time, readers can meet the private Marilyn and understand her in a way we never have before. Fragments is an unprecedented collection of written artifacts—notes to herself, letters, even poems—in Marilyn's own handwriting, never before published, along with rarely seen intimate photos.Jotted in notebooks, typed on paper, or written on hotel letterhead, these texts reveal a woman who loved deeply and strove to perfect her craft. They show a Marilyn Monroe unsparing in her analysis of her own life, but also playful, funny, and impossibly charming. The easy grace and deceptive lightness that made her performances indelible emerge on the page, as does the simmering tragedy that made her last appearances so affecting.