The Discovery of Heaven

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“Exhilerating, magnificent, dangerous.” — The Times Literary Supplement (London)

One of the great novels of the Twentieth Centurey described by John Updike as a meditation on “the persistence of trauma, the rapacity of eros, the fragility of our orderly schemes”

On a cold night in Holland two men meet and change each other’s lives forever. Max Delius – a hedonistic, yet brilliant astronomer who loves fast cars, nice clothes and beautiful women – picks up Onno Quist, a cerebral chaotic philologist who cannot bear the ordinariness of everyday life. Despite their differences, they fast become great friends.
And when they learn they were conceived on the same day, it is clear that their meeting is no coincidence. As the pair fall into and out of love with the same woman – Ada – so their lives become further intertwined. For all three are on a mysterious journey destined to shape human history.
The Discovery of Heaven is internationally recognized as a masterpiece. Rich in philosophical, psychological, historical and theological enquiry, it is an extravagant, bold and satisfying novel of ideas.”Harry Mulisch is dazzlingly good at the portrayal of intellectual friendship, a kind of relationship too rarely seen in modern fiction. In Max and Onno, he has created, in the manner of Thomas Mann, two fully distinct male characters, each of whom has a cornucopia of alert, offbeat observations to throw off in conversation. “ — The New York Times

“Exhilerating, magnificent, dangerous.” — The Times Literary Supplement (London)

“Mulisch’s bid for a masterpiece works commandingly, on every level. Could be one of the best novels of the last 20 years.” — Kirkus ReviewsHarry Mulisch (1927-2010): born to a Jewish mother whose family died in the concentration camps and an Austrian father who was jailed after the war for collaborating with the Nazis, HARRY MULISCH is one of Holland’s most acclaimed writers. He is the author of more than thirty works of fiction, nonfiction, commentary, plays, and poetry, many of them having as their subject the Second World War. The Assault has been translated into more than two dozen languages and was made into an Academy Award–winning film in 1986. Mulisch died in 2010.

Paul Vincent lives in London and translated Harry Mulisch’s previous two novels.US

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