 First edition | |
| Author | Antonio Tabucchi |
|---|---|
| Original title | Sostiene Pereira |
| Translator | Patrick Creagh |
| Language | Italian |
| Publisher | Feltrinelli |
Publication date | 1994 |
| Publication place | Italy |
Published in English | 1996 |
| Pages | 207 |
| ISBN | 88-07-01461-0 |
Pereira Maintains (Italian:Sostiene Pereira) is a 1994 novel by the Italian writerAntonio Tabucchi. It is also known asPereira Declares andDeclares Pereira. Its story follows Pereira, a journalist for the culture column of a smallLisbon newspaper, as he struggles with his conscience and the restrictions of the dictatorial regime ofAntonio Salazar. Antonio Tabucchi won thePremio Campiello,Viareggio Prize and Premio Scanno in 1994 for the novel.[1][2] It was adapted into a film, also calledSostiene Pereira, in 1996. It was the basis for the French comic bookPereira prétend, made byPierre-Henry Gomont and published in 2016.[3]
The novel is set in Portugal in the summer of 1938, duringSalazar's dictatorship. Pereira, an old journalist on a Portuguese newspaper - theLisboa - who lovesliterature and practically gives his life to it. When he reads an essay written by a young man about death, he calls the young man, whose name is Monteiro Rossi, to ask him to write "advance obituaries" about great writers who could die at any moment. Not having ever been much concerned with politics, Pereira's world is turned upside down when he begins to get to know the distracted and leftist youth. The articles he receives from Monteiro Rossi (and pays him for) have a definite leftist slant and are completely unpublishable, but something continues to attract Pereira to him, perhaps the fact that his wife died before he could have children of his own. His visit to a clinic to help his ailing heart puts him in contact with a doctor, with whom he becomes close friends and discusses the doubts he is beginning to have about his isolated and apolitical life. In the end, fascist police visit Pereira and beat Monteiro Rossi to death. With the help of a phone call from his doctor friend, Pereira manages to slip an article about the murder and condemning the regime into the newspaper he works for, then flees the country using a fake passport.
It adds context to know the writers, literature and political references that comprise the world of this novel. In order of appearance, 1995 New Directions edition, translated by Patrick Creagh.
Pereira's rightist editor suggests:
Lawrence Venuti ofThe New York Times pointed out that the book became a success in Italy as a symbol of resistance againstSilvio Berlusconi's government.[4]Michael Arditti reviewed the book forThe Daily Telegraph in 2010, and wrote: "Pereira Maintains is a concise, intense and original novel. ... Tabucchi now takes his place alongsideIrène Némirovsky,Sándor Márai andStefan Zweig as one of the great Continental rediscoveries for English-speaking readers of recent years."[5]
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