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Selection of reviews published in France

 

  • Conseil General de L'Essonne, January 2005 (on ‘Le bestiaire inachevé’)

Everything in this novel sounds as a whole: the simplicity, the precision, the beauty of the writing that refers to human modesty, its integrity, the purity of its soul. (...) Despite the dense colors of the theme, this novel appears white to us, with the whiteness of purity, simplicity, the awareness of a duty fulfilled... Above all, a novel that should not be missed.

 

  • Acropolis Magazine, Sep/Oct. 2004 (on ‘Le bestiaire inachevé’)

A beautiful novel, by an author who has already been compared to Umberto Eco.

 

  • Le Monde, June 25, 2004 (on ‘Le bestiaire inachevé’))

This book ​is covered in an infinitely sweet and sad light, the light of the wife's memory, from their first meeting until her death twenty years later. It inspires the author with searing pages, served in a delicious translation. Definitely, a superb love story that is bequeathed to us.

Jean Soublin

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  • La Quinzaine Littéraire, January 2004 (on ‘Le bestiaire inachevé’)

Sérgio Luís de Carvalho's novel is part of what Valéry calls a "refined genre". His poetic writing arranges the pieces and launches into the game. (...) ‘Bestiaire inachevé’ is one of the purest love songs we have ever heard, one of the closest to the surrealist ideal of "crazy love".

Maurice Mourier

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  • Europe, January 2004 (on ‘Le bestiaire inachevé’)

With a sobriety that exacerbates sensitivity, Sérgio Luís de Carvalho reconstitutes, in an intimate setting, a common destiny marked by the passage of time.

Max Alhau

 

  • La griffe noir – 2004 (on ‘Le bestiaire inachevé’)

One of the 10 most beautiful novels you need to read this year! To be discovered urgently.

 

  • Lire magazine, November 2003 (on ‘Le bestiaire inachevé’)

In a background of chaos, Sérgio Luís de Carvalho wrote a novel of rare human truth. A gravity emerges from these strong pages that sustains the grace of a language that could be that of prayers and psalms. A small masterpiece of sumptuous austerity.

Daniel Bermond

 

  • La Gazette Nord-Pas de Calais, November 2003 (on ‘Le Bestiaire Inachevé’)

Against a background of war and violence, the author gives us an intimate and disturbing work. Between the shadows and the light, the fear and the serenity in the face of the inevitable, the [character's] soul flutters, and so does the reader's.

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  • L'Express, November, 2003 (on ‘Le Bestiaire Inachevé’)

Sérgio Luís de Carvalho succeeded by skillfully inscribing the novel in the plot of a slowly unraveling existence into the backdrop of a general History that remains enigmatic in many ways.

Max Lejbowicz

 

  • Le Republican Lorrain, October 2003 (on ‘Le Bestiaire Inachevé’)

A masterpiece by Sérgio Luís de Carvalho, published by Phébus. An inevitable title in a library.

Gérard Oestreicher

 

  • Le temoignage chretien, October 2, 2003 (on ‘Le bestiaire inachevé’)

It is true that this story, actually real, unfolds in 1348, the year of the great black plague that devastated Europe. His final thoughts, in turn, remain astonishingly modern.

Arnaud de Montjoye

 

  • Le Figaro Litteraire, September, 2003 (on ‘Le bestiaire inachevé’)

Sérgio Luís de Carvalho performs a strong exercise here, moving from intimate writing to the most brutal description, from the most elegiac melancholy to the detailed chronicle of an era (...). ‘Le bestiaire inachevé’ is a great historical novel.

Gérard de Cortanze

 

  • Affiches moniteur, September, 2003 (on ‘Le bestiaire inachevé’)

Written in a broad and noble style, this metaphorical itinerary is traversed with refined appetite and curiosity. (...) Reading Carvalho, the reader is immersed in a rich ambience and customs from another time, but where human nature always prevails.

 

  • Dernieres Nouvelles d’Alsace, September 2003 (on ‘Le Bestiaire Inachevé’)

This work, dense and with a poetic force full of subtlety, allows us to predict future books yet to be translated. Carvalho wrote, with ‘Le bestiaire inachevé’, a true-false historical and dramatic novel (...) at once documented and visionary. An author to be followed.

Daniel Walther

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  • Luso Jornal, May 2024 (on ‘Anno domini 1348’ / ‘Le Bestiaire Inachevé’)

This historical novel, with the title ‘Anno Domini, 1348’, is perhaps the greatest Portuguese novel that portrays the Black Death, as it was, if it weren't for Sérgio, in addition to being a novelist, a renowned medievalist with extensive published work on the Middle Ages.

Nuno Gomes Garcia

 

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