Venice

“Mr. Nooteboom, fortunately, does have a highly distinctive voice—and often a new angle of vision (as does his wife, Simone Sassen, who took the striking photographs for this book). . . . He is forever excited by the abundance of wonders that the city continues to reveal. . . . The whole book is the illuminating testimony of a man who cannot look away and so sees things that others, even those with more specialist knowledge, have missed.”—Gregory Dowling, Wall Street Journal

“[Nooteboom] prowls the streets, conjuring up emblems of the past in statues, paintings, and gardens, seeking answers to questions that are more like riddles: Are we still who we once were? and Were we ever who we once were? . . . His deep knowledge and love of Venice’s past provide the suitably pleasurable Venetian contradiction.”—J. R. Patterson, World Literature Today

“For Nooteboom, Venice is above all a city of spirits, memories and stories, and his beguiling book—well served by Laura Watkinson's free-flowing translation—is a leisurely examination of an entrancement that has deepened with each visit, over the course of half a century.”—Jonathan Buckley, Times Literary Supplement

“With his customary intelligence, erudition and sheer passion for the world we live in, Cees Nooteboom has achieved the impossible: to say something new about the ageless city about which everything has been said.”—Alberto Manguel