Stevenson Under the Palm Trees

"Manguel merges fantasy and reality to create a deceptively simple tale that's both evocative and disturbing."ObserverRobert Louis Stevenson is enjoying life on the humid, colourful island of Samoa until rape, murder and the appearance of his doppelganger, Mr Baker, change everything.With this playful homage to Stevenson's life and work Manguel has woven an intoxicating tale in which dreams mingle with consciousness and repressed desires take shape; where stories become reality and storytellers merge with their own creations."Deftly drawing on Stevenson's writings, Manguel moves elegantly through multiple dualities - not merely repression and sensuality, but waking and dreaming, reporting and inventing, attraction and revulsion. Like his eminent precursors, he succeeds in showing how an ostensible crime story can carry profound implications."The Sunday Times"Manguel's brief and mesmerizing work is deceptively simple and intriguingly complex, presenting, beneath the gentle and evocative narrative, a tremendous scope of themes and ideas." Zembla Magazine£6.99Cover design / James Hutcheson