Budapest

Jose Costa has just attended the Anonymous Writers Congress in Istanbul and is on his way back to Rio when a bomb scare on his flight forces him to spend a night in Budapest.

José Costa has just attended the Anonymous Writers Congress in Istanbul andis on his way back to Rio when a bomb scare on his flight forces him to spend anight in Budapest. Fascinated by the Hungarian language - he is after all aghost writer by trade and a man who lives by language - he spends the nightwatching television, trying to pick out words in this tongue, ''the only one thedevil respects''. In charting José''s life we enter a storytelling labyrinth, as his myth-making, love-making and essays into another culture become mired in the world where celebrities make reputations and fortunes from the writing ofothers, and where the reader is not sure what language, or what reality, isbeing offered ...Budapest is Buarque''s most naturalistic fiction to date, and thefunniest''Times Literary Supplement''Perhaps the most beautiful of Chico''s three mature books,Budapest is a labyrinth of mirrors whose resolution comes, notin the plot, but in the words, like in poems''Caetano Veloso''In moving the narrator between Rio and Budapest, Buarquebuilds a brilliantly symmetrical design, incorporating two cities,two languages, two love affairs, and two halves of his hero''s lifeas a ghost writer. Buarque''s writing here has the alluring, poeticquality of a dream described aloud''Independent''It is the risks he takes that give brilliancy to his tale. He tunnelsdeep into the human mind and emerges with more questionsthan answers ... It is a privilege to be able to share in thatprogress''Glasgow Herald