By the Rivers of Babylon

“Regarded as a contender for the Nobel Prize in literature. . . . The future tense is hopefully prescient, because [Lobo Antunes] is one of the essential writers of our tormented times.”—Alberto Manguel, Times Literary Supplement

“Arguably the greatest living Portuguese writer. . . . This work has undeniable literary merit.”—Lawrence Olszewski, Library Journal

“Little prepares one for this extraordinary book, in which each chapter, covering a single day, and lasting a single sentence, offers a teeming stream of consciousness. . . . Even pain is alive, and alive is the word for this book, alive and enduring.”—Michael Autrey, Booklist

“A haunting and lyrical work by one of Portugal’s most acclaimed writers.”—Vol. 1 Brooklyn

“By the Rivers of Babylon is like a dialogue between a man confronting death and his childhood self, a being who can’t even conceive of dying. . . . As always, it is a pleasure to be buoyed along by Lobo Antunes’s writing, as if floating along the Mondego River, whose headwaters young António would visit with his grandfather in the Serra da Estrela in the summer, when death was still something that happened to other people.”—Alex Lanz, Full Stop

“At work here in the fields of Joyce, Lobo Antunes uses a rolling, swirling syntax to capture the actual movements of human consciousness. His lightly punctuated sentences run forward and loop on themselves almost without pause, sweeping this reader along through an intense mental journey and leaving him amazed and enlightened. By the Rivers of Babylon is a remarkable literary accomplishment.”—Billy Collins

“By the Rivers of Babylon is another stunning achievement by Lobo Antunes, expertly rendered by the multi-gifted Jull Costa. Reading this bold meditation on Eros and Thanatos you are firmly in the presence of permanence, of the great god Literature.”—William Giraldi, author of American Audacity

Praise for António Lobo Antunes:
 
“One of the living writers who will matter most.”—Harold Bloom
 
“A novelist of the very first rank.”—George Steiner
 
“A master navigator of the human psyche.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review
 
“Perhaps Portugal’s greatest living author . . . a genius.”—San Francisco Chronicle
 
“One of the most skillful psychological portraitists writing anywhere.”—New Yorker