The Illustrious House of Ramires

In a brilliant new translation, the wonderful penultimate novel by Ea de Queirs: "Portugal's greatest novelist" (Jos Saramago)

The Illustrious House of Ramires, presented here in a sparkling new translation by Margaret Jull Costa, is the favorite novel of many Ea de Queirs aficionados. This late masterpiece, wickedly funny and yet profoundly tender, centers on Gonalo Ramires, heir to a family so aristocratic that it predates even the kings of Portugal. Gonalocharming but disastrously effete, idealistic but hopelessly weakmuddles through his pampered life, burdened by a grand ambition. He is determined to write a great historical novel based on the heroic deeds of his fierce medieval ancestors. But "the record of their valor," as The London Spectator remarked, "is ironically counterpointed by his own chicanery. A combination of Don Quixote and Walter Mitty, Ramires is continually humiliated but at the...