[KevinDonae]

Firmino is a young Lisbon tabloid journalist. He is sent out to look into a report that a Gypsy had found a headless corpse in his encampment. Firmino also happens to be an aspiring literary critic, and he is repeatedly queried by the sagacious lawyer as to the methods he intends to use in his investigations, both in this case as well as the approach he will use in his aim of someday publishing a thesis on Post Realistic Portuguese Fiction. It's interesting this character has a lot of similiarities with Pereira, the progatonist of his most famous novel Pereira Declares. I haven't read the novel you're reviewing, but the one I quoted before and a pair of short story books makes me think he is a perfect candidate for the Nobel Prize. His texts are so beatufully narrated ,even though I've read them in translation, and this means that his prose is so brilliant that can overtake translations. (The other options is that his translator is great, but I've read him with different ones so I'd be inclined for the first option).
Thumbs up for Tabucchi