By the Rivers of Babylon

“Regarded as a contender for the Nobel Prize in literature. . . . The future tense is hopefully prescient, because [Lobo Antunes] is one of the essential writers of our tormented times.”—Alberto Manguel, Times Literary Supplement

Longlisted for the 2024 National Translation Award in Prose, sponsored by The American Literary Translators Association (ALTA)

“At work here in the fields of Joyce, Lobo Antunes uses a rolling, swirling syntax to capture the actual movements of human consciousness. His lightly punctuated sentences run forward and loop on themselves almost without pause, sweeping this reader along through an intense mental journey and leaving him amazed and enlightened. By the Rivers of Babylon is a remarkable literary accomplishment.”—Billy Collins

“By the Rivers of Babylon is another stunning achievement by Lobo Antunes, expertly rendered by the multi-gifted Jull Costa. Reading this bold meditation on Eros and Thanatos you are firmly in the presence of permanence, of the great god Literature.”—William Giraldi, author of American Audacity

Praise for António Lobo Antunes:
 
“One of the living writers who will matter most.”—Harold Bloom
 
“A novelist of the very first rank.”—George Steiner
 
“A master navigator of the human psyche.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review
 
“Perhaps Portugal’s greatest living author . . . a genius.”—San Francisco Chronicle
 
“One of the most skillful psychological portraitists writing anywhere.”—New Yorker