Praise
Cross J.M. Coetzee with Gabriel García Márquez and you've got José Eduardo Agualusa, Portugal's next candidate for the Nobel Prize.
— Alan Kaufman
Without doubt one of the most important Portuguese-language writers of his generation.
— António Lobo Antunes
Angolan-born Agualusa, together with Mozambique writer Mia Couto, are among the most inventive writers at work in lusophone Africa.
— The National
As an inventive Angolan writer whose fiction has won the International Dublin Literary Award and been shortlisted for the International Man Booker, Agualusa consistently treats Angolan history and identity with the lyrical experimentalism and unabashed weirdness of the surrealist . . . Agualusa’s sensitively ambitious creation…persuasively inserts itself between the imaginary and the real.
— Jessica Payn, The Arts Desk
‘A man with a good story is practically a king.’ If this is true, then Agualusa can count himself among the continent’s new royals.
— Angel Gurría-Quintana, The Financial Times
The limitless possibilities of fiction are brilliantly utilised in José Eduardo Agualusa´s novel The Living and the Rest . . . Ingenious.
— The Irish Times
In this immersive work of magical realism . . . a storm system wreaks havoc on Mozambique, causing a group of visiting authors to question reality . . . Agualusa skillfully navigates the many interwoven story lines, sustaining threads of romance and terror as the days pass and supplies run low.
— Publishers Weekly
Agualusa’s funny and lively tale turns increasingly ominous ahead of an explosive conclusion.
— The Guardian, starred review
Perfect for those who like their beach reads served with a spritz of postmodernism.
— Strong Words
The Living and the Rest is a fun novel, an enigmatic page-turner.
— Tony's Reading List
An entirely beautiful book.
— Tatiana Salemn Levy
Another example of the Angolan writer´s originality.
— Visão
In The Living and the Rest, the storyteller achieves immortality: when the idea of time stops growing within the body, the sense of history becomes weary, under this circumstance, humans are halfway through the deathbed. But the memories of the story becomes the flesh and bone of the time.
— Beijing News, Book Review Weekly
An impressively skilled and original storyteller, author José Eduardo Agualusa has elevated his original and deftly crafted novel, The Living and the Rest to an imposing level of literary excellence.
— Midwest Book Review
In José Eduardo Agualusa’s clever and appealing The Living and the Rest . . . disaster yields to the same contest of wills, domesticated intrigues, and creative urges going on around the world amid talk about book tours, festivals, workshops, residencies, panels, publishers, agents, how to become more visible on the Internet.
— Tom Wilhelmus, The Hudson Review
