Diary of the Fall

A powerful and heartbreaking novel about love, guilt and memory – and the stories we choose to tell about ourselves and each other

Extraordinary... In my world, this novel is already a classic

A powerful exploration of memory and guilt

Astonishingly powerful ... Diary of a Fall may well emerge as one of the finest novels published in English this year

A gripping, thoughtful novel... Laub beautifully retrieves the tragedy of the holocaust from its scholarship, politics and deniers, cutting to the bone of human life, its longings and limitations

[A] powerful and nuanced novel… Elegantly translated… It is both timely and gratifying to see one of the country’s outstanding writers come to the attention of an English-language readership

This riveting read challenges how we choose to tell others our life story and how events make us into the people we are. A top, quick read

I have already found a contender for my book of 2014

Robustly delicate… This is the Brazilian author’s fifth novel, and the first to be translated into English. Let’s hope for more to follow

Utterly convincing... An original and thought-provoking exploration of the way history casts its ripples through generations

The novel succeeds in talking about the horror of horrors because of the illuminating prism through which it is rendered, and because of its compassion, intelligence and respect

Laub has crafted a book not only about the power of memory but also about moving on from suffering and taking responsibility for our own actions, and for the people we become

Laub is trying to create both an incantatory effect and gradually excavate the past; he succeeds brilliantly… A gripping, thoughtful novel, fluidly translated… Laub beautifully retrieves the tragedy of the holocaust from its scholarship, politics and deniers, cutting to the bone of human life, its longings and limitations.

Michel Laub was born in Porto Alegre and currently lives in Sao Paulo. He is a writer and journalist, and was named one of Granta's twenty 'Best of Young Brazilian Novelists'. Diary of the Fall, which received the Brasilia Award, was his first novel to appear in English. It won the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Prize 2015 and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award 2016.

‘I often dreamed about the moment of the fall, a silence that lasted a second, possibly two, a room full of sixty people and no one making a sound, as if everyone were waiting for my classmate to cry out ... but he lay on the ground with his eyes closed’ 
 
A schoolboy prank goes horribly wrong, and a thirteen-year-old boy is left injured. Years later, one of the classmates relives the episode as he tries to come to terms with his demons. 
 
Diary of the Fall is the story of three generations: a man examining the mistakes of his past, and his struggle for forgiveness; a father with Alzheimer’s, for whom recording every memory has become an obsession; and a grandfather who survived Auschwitz, filling notebook after notebook with the false memories of someone desperate to forget. 
 
Beautiful and brave, Michel Laub’s novel asks the most basic – and yet most complex – questions about history and identity, exploring what stories we choose to tell about ourselves and how we become the people we are. 
 
Michel Laub's next book, A Poison Apple, will be published on 6th July 2017.

Michel Laub

Daniel Hahn

It is both timely and gratifying to see one of the country’s outstanding writers come to the attention of an English-language readership

I read A Poison Apple in two impulsive, impatient sittings... Michel Laub is one of the most intelligent novelists at work south of the equator. If he were north of the equator, he’d be one of the most intelligent novelists there too. I love the minute intricacy of his compositions, and the way they stage such giant traumas.

In this sly and unexpected novel, Laub asks how some thrive in spite of trauma and others fall apart in the face of success.

DIARY OF THE FALL: Extraordinary... In my world, this novel is already a classic

DIARY OF THE FALL: A work of immense incantatory power

One of Brazil’s finest authors offers a meditation on betrayal, guilt, survival and the many ways in which personal and collective histories collide.

The narrator is. . . a Nick Carraway-type whose apparent detachment eventually collapses to reveal deep emotion. In this sly and unexpected novel, Laub asks how some thrive in spite of trauma and others fall apart in the face of success.

*Selected as one of the Best Books 2017 in the Financial Times* 
'One of Brazil’s finest authors offers a meditation on betrayal, guilt, survival and the many ways in which personal and collective histories collide' - Ángel Gurría-Quintana 
 
Is it better to burn out than to fade away? An entrancing novel of loss and regret, from the prizewinning Brazilian novelist Michel Laub. 
 
In this sinuous meditation on passion, youth and guilt, a man looks back over twenty years to his relationship with his first love, Valeria, and its tragic climax.. 
 
They both had tickets to Nirvana in 1993, the only gig the band ever played in Brazil. But he was on military service and failed to join her. She was there with his best friend instead. Consumed by insecurities and tricks of memory, he continues to feel, two decades later, that one fateful night has defined his entire adult life. 
 
Entwining this most personal story with seminal events of the 1990s, A Poison Apple circles around and back to some of the biggest questions: what is a life worth? What does it mean to really commit to living? And can we ever break free of the past? 
 
Successor to his prizewinning Diary of the Fall, this is a beautiful and haunting novel that shows Michel Laub at his mesmeric best.

Michel Laub

Praise for A Poison Apple

It is both timely and gratifying to see one of the country’s outstanding writers come to the attention of an English-language readership

I read A Poison Apple in two impulsive, impatient sittings... Michel Laub is one of the most intelligent novelists at work south of the equator. If he were north of the equator, he’d be one of the most intell ...

In this sly and unexpected novel, Laub asks how some thrive in spite of trauma and others fall apart in the face of success.

It is both timely and gratifying to see one of the country’s outstanding writers come to the attention of an English-language readership

I read A Poison Apple in two impulsive, impatient sittings... Michel Laub is one of the most intelligent novelists at work south of the equator. If he were north of the equator, he’d be one of the most intell ...

In this sly and unexpected novel, Laub asks how some thrive in spite of trauma and others fall apart in the face of success.

It is both timely and gratifying to see one of the country’s outstanding writers come to the attention of an English-language readership

I read A Poison Apple in two impulsive, impatient sittings... Michel Laub is one of the most intelligent novelists at work south of the equator. If he were north of the equator, he’d be one of the most intell ...

In this sly and unexpected novel, Laub asks how some thrive in spite of trauma and others fall apart in the face of success.

Books by Michel Laub

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