The High Mountains of Portugal

The long-awaited new novel from the Booker Prize-winning author of the worldwide phenomenon Life of Pi.To suffer and do nothing is to be nothing, while to suffer and do something is to become someone. He must strike onwards to the High Mountains of Portugal!


In Lisbon in 1904, a young man named Tomás discovers an old journal. It hints at the location of an extraordinary artefact that - if it exists - would redefine history. Travelling in one of Europe's earliest automobiles, he sets out in search of this treasure. Some thirty-five years later, a Portuguese pathologist finds himself at the centre of a murder mystery.

Fifty years on, a Canadian senator takes refuge in northern Portugal, grieving the loss of his beloved wife. But he comes to his ancestral village with an unusual companion: a chimpanzee.

Three stories. Three broken hearts. One exploration: what is a life without stories?

The High Mountains of Portugal takes the reader on a road trip through Portugal in the last century - and through the human soul.