The river flowed in a dark, narrow channel. Light filtered in diagonal streaks through the canopy of overhanging trees. Cries from unseen animals filled the air from time to time. Flocks of parrots went shrieking past overhead, almost drowning out the clatter of the diesel of the battered old boat, The Princess Isabella, that chugged its way into the dark Amazon jungle. On board the boat, sprawled in a hammock, Cesar Calderon stared into the dank nothingness. He had just deserted a pregnant mistress and abandoned his business. In a bar in Santa Rosa a strange man had threatened to kill him. A man to whom he had done nothing, had in no way provoked, yet who claimed he, Calderon, owed him his life. Perhaps Calderon had no alternative but to fulfil a bewildering yet murderous destiny. For had his grandmother not offered him this disturbing advice: 'Go and find your father, hug him and embrace him, but stick a knife in his chest and let him fall at your feet.' For in this haunting work of fiction the son must both abandon and become the father, and the father must always embrace death in the person of the son. Writing in a style of deceptive simplicity, Zulfikar Ghose weaves a magical spell. Don Bueno is both straightforward and rich in resonance and symbol, wonderfully dreamlike yet solidly of and about this world. In this, his ninth novel, he demonstrates once again that he is a writer of increasing stature and accomplishment who makes his own way and creates his own world without regard for facile trends or shifting tastes.

How can this life have meaning if at my death nothing of me remains? This is the essential question with which Miguel de Unamuno, the most accomplished Spanish man of letters of the twentieth century, struggled during his entire life. Unamuno's views have been the subject of vigorous debate: Was he a Catholic, a Protestant, or an unbeliever? Miguel de Unamuno's Quest for Faith seeks to appreciate and clarify Unamuno's faith commitments without diminishing or exaggerating them. His historical context pulled him to equate knowledge with science, but his existential angst told him humans must be something more than short-lived products of matter. He believed that his philosophy and the resulting faith that he held must have consequences for the choices he made to live out his life meaningfully. Jan E. Evans surveys what was at stake in Unamuno's desire to believe and the stance that he came to live with. That stance is contrasted with thinkers whom he read and admired: Soren Kierkegaard, Blaise Pascal, and William James. Ultimately, this book tests Unamuno's philosophy against his own criterion that demanded concrete actions that were motivated by principled passion. It draws new readers of Unamuno into his world and provides critical new perspectives for those who know Unamuno's work well.