'Budapest is Buarque's most naturalistic fiction to date, and the funniest' Times Literary Supplement 'Perhaps the most beautiful of Chico's three mature books, Budapest is a labyrinth of mirrors whose resolution comes, not in the plot, but in the words, like in poems' Caetano Veloso 'In moving the narrator between Rio and Budapest, Buarque builds a brilliantly symmetrical design, incorporating two cities, two languages, two love affairs, and two halves of his hero's life as a ghost writer. Buarque's writing here has the alluring, poetic quality of a dream described aloud' Independent 'It is the risks he takes that give brilliancy to his tale. He tunnels deep into the human mind and emerges with more questions than answers ... It is a privilege to be able to share in that progress' Glasgow Herald