Purgatory
Tomas Eloy Martinez
Simón Cardoso has been dead for thirty years when his wife, Emilia Dupuy, finds him in a New Jersey diner. Testimonies confirmed that Simón had been one of the thousands of victims of Argentina's military regime, executed for being a 'subversive'; yet this man is identical to the man she lost three decades ago. While skirting around the mystery, Eloy Martínez masterfully peels away layer upon layer of history - both personal and political. And just as Simón's disappearance comes to represent the thousands of disappearances that were such a common occurrence during the dictatorship, so Emilia's refusal to accept his death mirrors the country's unwillingness to face its reality.
The final work of the late Martínez, Purgatory is his most moving, most autobiographical novel.
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About Tomas Eloy Martinez
Reviews for Purgatory
Stephanie Cross, Daily Mail
Limpidly translated by Frank Wynne ... a compassionate novel about the power of chimeras - of what we chose to see, of what we can bear to see - and the way grief clots when it is unsolved
Simon Willis, Economist
The posthumous publication of Purgatory shows a writer at the height of his craft, and is a fitting conclusion to the work of one of Latin America's most remarkable novelists
Alberto Manguel, Guardian
[A] moving exploration of the intangible nature of truth
Siobhan Murphy, Metro
[A] haunting and surreal depiction of the military dictatorship that gripped Argentina in the late 1970s ... Martinez questions the ideas of identity, geography, existence, and reality with fluid prose and finely detailed imagery that throws into relief the brutality and fear of this dark era
Publishers Weekly
Beautifully combines unsubtle, hard-hitting commentary on Argentine history with a touching ghost story about love, loss, and death
Booklist
A haunting tale of love and loss, told with precision
John O’Connell, Voyager
The author of the hugely successful Santa Evita has written another well-paced novel
Library Journal