The High Mountains of Portugal

Yann Martel's new novel, The High Mountains of Portugal, is an uncommon adventure story that takes us from Africa in the 1600s, through Portugal at the turn of the 20th century, to the USA of the 1980s and reminds us that it is our ability to weave remarkable stories that makes us, and keeps us, human.

The High Mountains of Portugal consists of three stories. The first takes place in 1904 and follows a determinedly rational young man named Tomas on his quest to reach the High Mountains of Portugal. In the second story, which is set in 1938, Dr Eusebio Lozora conducts an autoposy on the body of an eighty-three year old man. In the third part, set in the 1980s, Senator Peter Cohen, grieving for his broken family, is forever transformed by a visit to an Oklahoma City chimpanzee sanctuary.

Together these stories form a wondrously elliptical treatise on mortality, a parable on faith itself, a thrilling quest tale and a meditation on what makes us - and keeps us - human. Tender, heartfelt, clear-eyed and frequently hilarious, with The High Mountains of Portugal Yann Martel will once again charm the millions of fans who fell for Pi.