Pandora in the Congo

Translated from the Catalan by Mara Faye Lethem

It is 1914. In the heart of the Belgian Congo, Garvey, a bedraggled British manservant, emerges from the jungle. He is the lone survivor of a mining expedition in which both his masters, William and Robert Craven, have died, and all of the party's African porters have fled. With him, Garvey carries two huge diamonds.

From his prison cell in London, Garvey recounts his horrific and thrilling ordeal. Young Tommy Thomson is assigned to transcribe Garvey's story and only he can untangle the extraordinary mysteries of the Garvey case.

Pandora in the Congo is a triumphant feat of imagination, a gripping tale that ventures to the world's darkest places—and beyond—to the furthest reaches of the human mind.

Praise for Pandora in the Congo:

'Albert Sánchez Piñol is possessed of an exceptional, fecund and devious imagination.'

David Mitchell

'An action-packed adventure story in the best Rider Haggard tradition. It is also a parody of such novels and a sophisticated reflection on the imaginative power of literature. ... Sanchez Pinol's originality lies in his themes and excellently structured plot, not in any linguistic fireworks. This is an impressive and most unusual novel.'

Independent

'It melds the ironies of Christopher Hope's Darkest England with the shape-shifting brio of Richard Flanagan's Gould's Book of Fish. Going beyond particular postcolonial politics (as might detain a British or Commonwealth writer) into that realm of hyperbolic fabulation where Umberto Eco has long made safari, Pandora in the Congo marks Sánchez Piñol's emergence as a significant European writer.'

Giles Foden, Guardian