Declares Pereira, by Antonic Tahucchi (Harvill, £5.99 in UK)

Middle aged, overweight and heartsick in more ways than one, Pereira now finds himself editing the cultural pages of a secondrate newspaper. Once a famous crime reporter, he contents himself with translating 19th century French literature, noting the anniversaries of dead writers and having detailed conversations with his dead wife's photograph. It is the long, hot summer of 1938, and Lisbon is living under the shadow of censorship as grim news filters in from the rest of Europe. Caught in his own isolation, Pereira finds his eyes are gradually opened to the cynical complacency around him when he employs a young man as his assistant. Antonio Tabucchi's fourth novel, a subtly ironic, human account of one man's small rebellion, is as engaging as it is shrewdly measured.