A Devil Comes to Town

A small Swiss village full of aspiring writers + The devil in the form of a hot-shot publisher = An international bestseller by the author of the Italian literary sensation The Luneburg Variation

Wild rabies runs rampant through the woods. The foxes are gaining ground, boldly making their way into the village. In Dichtersruhe, an insular yet charming haven stifled by the Swiss mountains, these omens go unnoticed by all but the new parish priest. The residents have other things on their mind: Literature. Everyone’s a writer―the nights are alive with reworked manuscripts. So when the devil turns up in a black car claiming to be a hot-shot publisher, unsatisfied authorial desires are unleashed and the village’s former harmony is shattered. Taut with foreboding and Gothic suspense, Paolo Maurensig gives us a refined and engaging literary parable on narcissism, vainglory, and our inextinguishable thirst for stories.

Paolo Maurensig is one of Italy’s bestselling authors. He debuted in 1993 with The Lüneburg Variation, translated into twenty-five languages, and selling over 2 million copies in Italy. His novels include Canone Inverso, The Guardian of Dreams, and The Archangel of Chess. For his novel Theory of Shadows, published by FSG in the US in January 2018, he won the Bagutta Prize. A Devil Comes to Town is his latest novel and received rave reviews in the European press.