Who is the mysterious narrator of Blindly? He is clearly a recluse and a fugitive. It is Jorgen Jorgenson, the nineteenth-century adventurer who became king of Iceland but was condemned to forced labour in the antipodes. But it is also Comrade Cippico, militant Italian communist, imprisoned for years in Tito’s gulag on the “naked island” of Goli Otok. And it is the many partisans, prisoners, sailors, and stowaways who recount the perils of travel, war, and adventure.

In a shifting, choral monologue—part confession, part psychiatric session—a man recounts (invents, falsifies, hides, screams out) his life, which has passed through the horrors, the hopes, and the revolutions of the last century and through widely different lands and seas.

Hailed as a masterpiece upon its initial publication in Italy, Blindly is a novel of highly original, poetic intensity, a Jacob’s Ladder reversed to descend into the nether regions of history and, in particular, of the twentieth century.

We at Hamish Hamilton Canada have our favourite sentences from each of our carefully selected books, but we wanted to know which sentences are special to the authors who wrote them.

Here in his own handwriting are two of Claudio Magris’ favourites.