Largo das Almas

A chance encounter one night on the Lusitania Express changes a Spanish writer’s relationship with Lisbon forever. Sitting across from him is António Freitas—an elegant, unsettling old man who speaks of Pessoa, madness, memory, and a past he seems determined to keep hidden. Over the weeks that follow, they meet again, sharing confidences, contradictions, and long silences—until, suddenly, Freitas vanishes. Left behind in the narrator’s room is a manuscript: *Largo das Almas*. Its pages appear to hold the keys to an erased life—and perhaps the explanation for a sense of guilt that spans decades of Portuguese history. Determined to discover who this man truly was, the narrator begins to follow his trail. Yet every account reveals a new fissure, and every certainty leads only to a different version of events. The search for Freitas evolves into an investigation into the ghosts that a single life leaves in its wake. Set against the backdrop of Portugal during the Second World War—when Lisbon became a hotbed for spies and refugees—the Salazar dictatorship, and the present day, this novel (winner of the Jaén Prize) employs a prose that is both agile and profound to unravel a complex web of betrayals, pursuits, and infamies. It is little wonder that the narrative itself feels like quicksand; for some disappearances do not bring a story to a close—they set it in motion.