Purgatory

Tomás Eloy Martínez was born in Argentina in 1934. During the military dictatorship, he lived in exile in Venezuela where he wrote his first three books, all of which were republished in Argentina in 1983, in the first months of democracy. He was until his death in January 2010 a professor and director of the Latin American Program at Rutgers University. He was shortlisted for the 2005 International Man Booker Prize. He died in 2010.

This is a ghost story unlike any other; in fact, 'ghost story' is entirely inadequate a description for this densely woven, occasionally cryptic, occasionally virtuosic novel ... Thomas Eloy Martinez was hailed on his death in 2010 as one of Argentina's most innovative writers. Recalling Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Paul Auster, this novel - elusive and resonant, satirical, surreal and moving - seems a fitting last testament