Description:
Winner of the 2026 Formentor Prize for Literature
Amid a landscape of rubble, skeletal figures, and helplessness in Europe post-World War II, a girl and a man wander among the ruins.
Hanna, a 12-year-old girl with Down's Syndrome, is looking for her father. Marius, her companion, seems to be hiding from something. Aided by a simple instruction card, Hanna explores what it is to be human, as Tavares creates an abstract yet touching portrait of the true victims of war.
Review Quotes:
"Gonçalo M. Tavares is a great writer who continues the best models of the European literary tradition. He is both masterful and original. You recognise his unique perspective and style from the first page of his every novel. One of the very few writers in the world who can construct a parabolic story." --Olga Tokarczuk
"Gonçalo M. Tavares is a writer who is unlike any you've read before. --The New Yorker
"It would be no exaggeration to say that there is very much a before Gonçalo M. Tavares and an after. I've predicted that in thirty years' time, if not before, he will win the Nobel Prize and I'm sure my prediction will come true."--José Saramago
"With great beauty and skill, Tavares narrates a fantastic story. One of the most striking books in recent European literature."--Le Monde
"Gonçalo Tavares' literature fascinates me with his brilliant paradoxes: he is an author who is indomitable and rational, ironic and profound, singular and approachable, demanding of himself and at the same time irresistibly amusing. His writing is a happy trigger for readers' intelligence." --Irene Vallejo