Allegro by Dorfman, Ariel

This thrilling historical mystery starring Mozart tells of friendship and betrayal, and how music allows us to defy death--from the acclaimed author of Death and the Maiden and The Suicide Museum.

In 1789 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart visits the grave of Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig, looking for a sign, a signal, an answer to an enigma that has haunted him since childhood: Was Bach murdered by a famous oculist? And years later, was Handel a victim of the same doctor?

Allegro follows his investigation, from the salons of London to the streets of Paris, recreating an enthralling and turbulent time, full of rogues and brilliant composers, charlatans and presumptuous nobles. Running parallel to this search is the rise of Mozart, his knowledge and fame, his trials and losses.

Author: Ariel Dorfman
Publisher: Other Press (NY)
Published: 03/04/2025
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.63lbs
Size: 7.95h x 5.34w x 0.72d
ISBN: 9781635424485

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 01/06/2025
Booklist 02/01/2025 pg. 45
Foreword 02/17/2025

About the Author
Ariel Dorfman is a Chilean-American author, born in Argentina, whose award-winning books in many genres have been published in more than fifty languages and his plays performed in more than one hundred countries. Among his works are the plays Death and the Maiden and Purgatorio, the novels The Suicide Museum (Other Press, 2023), Widows, and Konfidenz, and the memoirs Heading South, Looking North and Feeding on Dreams. He writes regularly for the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Review of Books, The Nation, The Guardian, El Pa?s, and CNN. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper's, The Threepenny Review, and Index on Censorship, among others. A prominent human rights activist, he worked as press and cultural advisor to Salvador Allende's chief of staff in the final months before the 1973 military coup, and later spent many years in exile. He lives with his wife Ang?lica in Santiago, Chile, and Durham, North Carolina, where he is the Walter Hines Page Emeritus Professor of Literature at Duke University.