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Back to topThe Prague Cemetery (Paperback)
November 2011 Indie Next List
“In Eco's latest work, we follow the exploits of a split-personality secret agent and forger who traipses around 19th-century Europe involving himself in many of the key events of the day. From Garibaldi's campaign for a united Italian Republic to the Paris Commune to the Dreyfus Affair, he plants bombs, attends black masses, and forges documents playing one conspiracy against another. As always, Eco spins this all into a riveting and engrossing tale.”
— Conrad Silverberg, Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee, WI
Description
The Prague Cemetery is the #1 international bestselling historical novel from the award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco.
Nineteenth-century Europe—from Turin to Prague to Paris—abounds with the ghastly and the mysterious. Jesuits plot against Freemasons. Italian republicans strangle priests with their own intestines. French criminals plan bombings by day and celebrate Black Masses at night.
Every nation has its own secret service, perpetrating forgeries, plots, and massacres. Conspiracies rule history. From the unification of Italy to the Paris Commune to the Dreyfus Affair to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Europe is in tumult and everyone needs a scapegoat.
But what if behind all of these conspiracies, both real and imagined, lay one lone man?
“Choreographed by a truth that is itself so strange a novelist need hardly expand on it to produce a wondrous tale. . . . Eco is to be applauded for bringing this stranger-than-fiction truth vividly to life.” —The New York Times
About the Author
Umberto Eco (1932–2016) was the author of numerous essay collections and seven novels, including The Name of the Rose, The Prague Cemetery, and Inventing the Enemy. He received Italy’s highest literary award, the Premio Strega; was named a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur by the French government; and was an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Praise For…
“A well-executed thriller . . . Provocative and suspenseful.” — USA Today
“Vintage Eco . . . the book is a triumph.” — New York Review of Books
“[Eco] demonstrates once again that his is a voice that compels our attention.” — San Francisco Chronicle
“Choreographed by a truth that is itself so strange a novelist need hardly expand on it to produce a wondrous tale . . . Eco is to be applauded for bringing this stranger-than-fiction truth vividly to life.” — New York Times