Microcosms - Softcover

Paperback. Pub Date: 2001 Pages: 288 in Publisher: Harvill Press In his acclaimed work Danube Claudio Magris painted a vast canvas by stretching from the source of the river to the Black Sea Now he focuses on the tiny Borderlands of Istria and Italy where he was born and where he has lived most intensely. From the forests of Monte Nevoso. to the hidden valleys of the Tyrol. to a Trieste caf. Microcosm pieces together a mosaic of stories - comic. tragic. picaresque. nostalgic - from life's minor characters. Their worlds might be small. but they are far from minimalist: in them flashes the great. the meaningful. the unrepeatable significance of every existence.

"A haunting amalgam of travelogue, autobiography and impressionist sketch book" (Jonathan Keates Literary Review)

"Claudio Magris is engaged on a seductively exciting journey of the imagination, which enriches and enthrals" (Eileen Battersby Irish Times)

"Microcosms, in its subtly magical blend of the public and the personal, of the inner voice and the voices without, of the café and of the study, of the hearth and of the world, is a unique and wonderful achievement" (John Banville New York Review of Books)

"A haunting series of evocations and recollections... the very antithesis of your run-of-the-mill travel book" (Jan Morris Observer)