Synopses & Reviews
The fabulous debut novel by new international talent Azhar Abidi, Passarola Rising is a deftly written picaresque tale filled with evocative detail, adventure, and suspense. Set in eighteenth-century Europe, it tells the story of Bartolomeu and Alexandre Lourenço, who use their airship, the Passarola, to escape the strictures of the Church, the suspicion of the government, and the intellectually stultifying climate of Lisbon. As they venture from the salons and bordellos of ancien régime Paris to the desolate far reaches of the North Pole, the brothers Lourenço encounter some of the most colorful characters of the European Enlightenment, including the loquacious Voltaire and the irascible King Stanislaus of Poland.
Review
A classic sidekick picaresque . . . in the tradition of the Lone Ranger and Tonto, Huck and Tom, Watson and Holmes. (Los Angeles Times)
Review
Azhar Abidi is not a writer who has his feet on the ground. And that is a compliment. (Alexander McCall Smith, The New York Times Book Review)
Review
This enchanting fable seems in its compass to consider everything worth considering: enlightenment and religious authority, research and totalitarianism, gravity and ideas, adventure, love and fun, and all with a zest and pace missing from so much other fiction writing. (Thomas Keneally, author of Schindlers List)
About the Author
Azhar Abidis work has been published in the Guardian Weekly, the Australian literary journal Meanjin, and The Best Australian Essays 2004 and the Southwest Review.