Beatrice and Virgil - Softcover

A provocative and fiercely brave novel. It grips the reader with teeth as sharp as a Bengal tiger's -- John Boyne * * author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas * * A sophisticated fable...Beatrice and Virgil is so imbued with passionate moral and intellectual ardor that even the cynical should find it engaging. * * Wall Street Journal * * It's a masterpiece, no question. -- A N Wilson * * Reader's Digest * * An explosion of ideas that keep the pages turning...a wild, provocative novel * * Independent on Sunday * * Audaciously original, never less than engrossing, often disturbing, and in its denouement truly horrifying. -- Mick Brown * * The Telegraph Magazine * * A slim but potent exploration of the nature of survival in the face of evil. -- Nina Sankovitch * * The Huffington Post * * It is awe-inspiring when a writer hits a high note; goes dancing along the edge of something; hurls himself against enormous questions again and again...Writers such as Martel are a kind of human sacrifice. It cannot be easy to imagine a way into suffering, come out, lead others into it and through it. * * Los Angeles Times * * For page after page it held my attention, and the atmosphere of foreboding is impressively done. * * Irish Sunday Independent * * Imaginative and innovative novel about the Holocaust, including taxidermists, talking donkeys and the best ever description of a pear. It's weird, wonderful and impressively short. * * Financial Times * * Strikingly impressive . . . It is the kind of book that you can read only in short bursts, while telling yourself that you will re-read it immediately . . . It has the wit, charm and hectic strangeness of a painting by Chagall. * * Times * * Sings with rich and bleak poetry. * * Guardian * *

This is the story of a donkey named Beatrice and a monkey named Virgil. It is also the story of an extraordinary journey undertaken by a man named Henry. It begins with a mysterious parcel, and it ends in a place that will make you think again about one of the most significant events of the twentieth century. Once you have finished reading it, it is impossible to forget.