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Ernesto Durán is convinced he is sick. It becomes an obsession far exceeding hypochondria, and when Dr Andrés Miranda gives up responding to his letters and e-mails, Durán resolves to stalk him. The fixation has its own creeping effect on Karina, Miranda’s lonely secretary, who cannot resist becoming involved. Meanwhile, Dr Miranda has troubles of his own: he has diagnosed his father’s illness, but cannot summon the courage to tell him. In trying to find the perfect opportunity to break the news gently, Miranda ensures only that their relationship descends into farce.
Profound and philosophical, The Sickness is a tender and intimate celebration of life’s little absurdities and unlikely alliances.
Profound and philosophical, The Sickness is a tender and intimate celebration of life’s little absurdities and unlikely alliances.
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Reviews
'Tyszka is a perceptive, original writer. He has brought an unusually sophisticated understanding to a wonderfully intense, little novel. No sentimentality, no polemic, just emotion at its most resonant' Eileen Battersby, Irish Times.
'Tyszka's fable achieves an almost Coetzee-like level of resonant exactitude' Boyd Tonkin.
'powerful first novel ... gracefully examined to sometimes comic, but ultimately deeply moving effect' Good Book Guide.
'A great book' Michael Morpurgo.
'Powerful themes and powerful writing' Susan Hill.
'A small masterpiece' Theodore Dalrymple.