Piano Cemetery

Translated from the Portguese by Daniel HahnThe extraordinary story of two generations in a Lisbon family of carpenters and of a father's attempt to outrun his fate in the marathon at the Stockholm Olympics in 1908.‘A superb family saga' The Times‘Almost unbearably moving' Financial TimesThe Lázaro family are carpenters who would rather be piano-makers. In the dusty back room of their carpentry shop in Lisbon is the ‘piano cemetery', filled with broken-down pianos that provide the spare parts needed for repairing and rebuilding instruments all over the city.It is a mysterious and magical place, a place of solace, a dreaming place and, above all, a trysting place for lovers. Peixoto weaves the tragic true story of the marathon-runner, Francisco Lázaro, into a rich narrative of love, betrayal, domestic happiness and dashed hopes.

‘A superb family saga', ‘Almost unbearably moving', ‘A rolling, elegiac and undoubtedly musical novel', ‘A story of sex and treachery, of ambition and frustration, of a mostly thwarted desire to please ... Peixoto has an acute ear for cadence, a sharp eye for the luminous image and a good nose for the pungent'

José Luís Peixoto was born in 1974 in Galveias, Portalegre, in Portugal's Alentejo region. A journalist, novelist, poet, dramatist, literary critic and teacher of languages and contemporary literature, he is also a heavy metal fan and produced a book and record called The Antidote with the Gothic band Moonspell. His work is published and acclaimed in many languages and has won major prizes in Portugal and Brazil, including the José Saramago Prize in 2001 for Blank Gaze.Daniel Hahn is a translator of fiction and non-fiction, mainly from Portuguese. His translation of The Book of Chameleons by Angolan novelist José Eduardo Agualusa won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2007.