Description
Raimund Gregorious is a predictable character. A bookish Latin professor, well-respected, perhaps a little boring. One stormy morning, he encounters a beautiful, distraught Portuguese woman in a red leather coat. Later that day Raimund realises: that moment changed everything. All of a sudden, nothing in his life feels right.
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Raimund Gregorius teaches classical languages at a Swiss lycee, and lives a life governed by routine. One day, a chance encounter with an enigmatic Portuguese woman inspires him to question his life and leads him to an extraordinary book that will open the possibility of changing it. He takes the train to Lisbon that same night, and with him the words of Amadeu de Prado, a doctor whose practice and principles led him into confrontation with Salazar's dictatorship, and a man whose intelligence and magnetism left a mark on everyone who met him. As Gregorius becomes fascinated with unlocking the mystery of who Prado was, he tracks down some of the key figures in his life: Prado's eighty-year-old sister, Adriana, who keeps the house like a museum in tribute to the brother who once saved her life; Joao Eca, an elderly torture survivor, now confined to a nursing home; and Jorge O'Kelly, Prado's childhood best friend and eventual partner in the resistance movement, until they were divided by a beautiful woman. And in Prado's story, an extraordinary tale takes shape, centered on a group of people working in utmost secrecy to fight dictatorship and the betrayals that threatened to expose them.A book that has sold two million copies worldwide, Night Train to Lisbon is a haunting tale of repression, resistance, love, and the universal human struggle to connect. An unqualified literary triumph that establishes Pascal Mercier as an important world voice, Night Train to Lisbon will be remembered for its soul and wit as well as its universality and resonant depth.
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