The Scent of a Lie
By Paulo Costa
2002
First Published
4.19
Average Rating
156
Number of Pages
The Scent of a Lie is a book of fourteen inter-connected stories set in two charismatic towns in Portugal where characters weave in and out of the narrative. The book can be read as a novel in fragments. This is a remarkable debut collection of tales told by a true storyteller. The Scent of a Lie received the 2003 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book in the Caribbean & Canada region and the 2002 City of Calgary Book Award. One of the stories received the 2001 Canongate Prize for short fiction at the International Book Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Scent Of A Lie, (…) marks the debut of a remarkable writer. - John Terauds, Toronto Star With this book of linked stories, Paulo Da Costa adds piquant new spice to the CanLit broth. Paying homage to a fabulist tradition running from Marquez and Borges and Carlos Fuentes all the way back to Cervantes, Da Costa evokes his God-beset, earthbound peasants, priests and villagers with palpable, redolent precision. Jim Bartley, The Globe and Mail The reader can see just how well da Costa writes: the language here is lyrical and flowing, and the imaginativeness of the stories speaks for itself. Da Costa is clearly a writer to watch. Tim McNamara, Edmonton Journal The most uniformly fresh, sprightly, meaty work of Canadian fiction I’ve read in a long time. Vue weekly, Print Culture - Christopher Wiebe
Avg Rating
4.19
Number of Ratings
47
5 STARS
51%
4 STARS
23%
3 STARS
19%
2 STARS
6%
1 STARS
0%
goodreads
Author
Paulo Costa
Author · 4 books
Born in Angola, and raised in Portugal, paulo da costa is a writer, editor and translator living in Canada. He is the recipient of the 2020 James H. Gray Award for Short Nonfiction, the 2003 Commonwealth First Book Prize for the Canada-Caribbean Region, the W. O. Mitchell City of Calgary Book Prize and the Canongate Prize for short-fiction. His poetry, fiction and non-fiction have been published widely in literary magazines around the world and translated into Italian, Spanish, Serbian, Slovenian and Portuguese. The Midwife of Torment is his latest book of fiction.
