Antonio Tabucchi

Message from the Shadows, Time Ages in a Hurry, Pereira Maintains

I haven’t updated my website in a while. This summer, I turned my Substack newsletter Wander, Wonder, Write into a weekly publication and I’ve been busy writing essays and posting travel photos there.

Since September, I’ve been living in Bracciano. This is charming hilltop castle town in the Lazio region of Italy, an hour north of Rome. To feel even more at home here, I’ve been learning Italian and reading Italian authors in English translation.

There are many Italian authors I could recommend, yet I’m giving you Antonio Tabucchi (Pisa, 1943—Lisbon, 2012) now because I’m currently reading his excellent story collection Message from the Shadows.

Years ago, I immensely appreciated Time Ages in a Hurry, another one of his short story collections. Tabucchi’s characters all struggle to escape from a present that’s hard to bear because of what’s happened in the past, and they must use their intuition to free themselves from false beliefs or uncover something that will help them cope.

One of my favorite Tabucchi books is Pereira Maintains, a novel set in Lisbon, where I first read it. If I ever teach a class on postmodern European literature in translation this title would be on my list. Pereira Maintains is about a journalist who fails to notice the menacing cloud of fascism and denies his responsibility in the world, until he slowly has a change of heart.