The Prague Cemetery - Hardcover

Nineteenth-century Europe—from Turin to Prague to Paris—abounds with the ghastly and the mysterious. Jesuits plot against Freemasons. Italian republicans strangle priests with their own intestines. French criminals plan bombings by day and celebrate Black Masses at night. Every nation has its own secret service, perpetrating forgeries, plots, and massacres. Conspiracies rule history. From the unification of Italy to the Paris Commune to the Dreyfus Affair to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Europe is in tumult and everyone needs a scapegoat. But what if, behind all of these conspiracies, both real and imagined, lay one lone man? What if that evil genius created the world’s most infamous document? Umberto Eco takes his readers on a remarkable journey through the underbelly of world-shattering events. Here is Eco at his most exciting, a book immediately hailed as a masterpiece.

THE INSTANT INTERNATIONAL #1 BESTSELLER, UMBERTO ECO’S MOST CONTROVERSIAL AND BEST-SELLING NOVEL SINCE THE NAME OF THE ROSE

"Erudite and pop, sinister and passionate . . . A work destined to become a classic." — La Repubblica (Italy)

“A novel that restores the irreverent and provocative spirit of great literature.” — El Cultural (Spain)

“The Prague Cemetery takes the power of fakery in history to new heights. At the center of the narrative is the most notorious fake document in modern history, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion . . . As depicted with appalling gusto, the bubbling away of such stories drives on the terrors of history, feeding and lending credibility to the loud ravings of the depraved.” — Times Literary Supplement (UK)

“A J'accuse is always timely, but there has rarely been anyone to write it — until the advent of the falsely demonic Umberto Eco, a Zola posing as the devil. His is a satanically dangerous novel, as are all ironic tales, especially if they should fall into the hands of a naive reader. So: naive readers, country bumpkins, gullible gapers, keep away! This magnificently sly, scarifying, circuitous, history-besotted jape is meant solely for the wise, the intrepid, and (if one may nowadays dare this biblical note) the righteous.” — Cynthia Ozick