Winner of the International D.H. Lawrence Prize for travel writing 2007: first prize for fiction John Berger has a large and extremely loyal fanbase John Berger is a unique and important figure in the literary landscape

No one appreciates the detail of being alive more than the dead. In Lisbon, a man encounters his mother sitting on a park bench who laughs with the impudence of a schoolgirl. She has been dead for fifteen years. In Krakow market he recognises Ken, his passeur, the most important person in his life between the ages of eleven and seventeen. They last met when Ken was sixty-five - forty years ago. The number of lives that enter any one life is incalculable. In this nomadic and playful book which travels through fictions across Europe, seemingly disparate stories reveal themselves to be linked, mislaid objects find their place and sensual memories penetrate the present.