Novels
- Night Train to Lisbon (2007)
- Perlmann’s Silence (2011)
- Lea (2017)
Novels Book Covers
Pascal Mercier Books Overview
Night Train to Lisbon
A huge international best seller, this ambitious novel plumbs the depths of our shared humanity to offer up a breathtaking insight into life, love, and literature itself. A major hit in Germany that went on to become one of Europe’s biggest literary blockbusters in the last five years, Night Train to Lisbon is an astonishing novel, a compelling exploration of consciousness, the possibility of truly understanding another person, and the ability of language to define our very selves. Raimund Gregorius is a Latin teacher at a Swiss college who one day after a chance encounter with a mysterious Portuguese woman abandons his old life to start a new one. He takes the Night Train to Lisbon and carries with him a book by Amadeu de Prado, a fictional Portuguese doctor and essayist whose writings explore the ideas of loneliness, mortality, death, friendship, love, and loyalty. Gregorius becomes obsessed by what he reads and restlessly struggles to comprehend the life of the author. His investigations lead him all over the city of Lisbon, as he speaks to those who were entangled in Prado s life. Gradually, the picture of an extraordinary man emerges a doctor and poet who rebelled against Salazar s dictatorship.
Perlmann’s Silence
A tremendous international success and a huge favorite with booksellers and critics, Pascal Mercier’s Night Train to Lisbon has been one of the best selling literary European novels in recent years. Now, in Perlmann s Silence, the follow up to his triumphant North American debut, Pascal Mercier delivers a deft psychological portrait of a man striving to get his life back on track in the wake of his beloved wife s death. Philipp Perlmann, prominent linguist and speaker at a gathering of renowned international academics in a picturesque seaside town near Genoa, is struggling to maintain his grip on reality. Derailed by grief and no longer confident of his professional standing, writing his keynote address seems like an insurmountable task, and, as the deadline approaches, Perlmann realizes that he will have nothing to present. Terror stricken, he decides to plagiarize the work of Leskov, a Russian colleague. But when Leskov s imminent arrival is announced and threatens to expose Perlmann as a fraud, Perlmann s mounting desperation leads him to contemplate drastic measures. An exquisite, captivating portrait of a mind slowly unraveling, Perlmann s Silence is a brilliant, textured meditation on the complex interplay between language and memory, and the depths of the human psyche.
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