THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer’s moving and addictive masterpiece of European identity; nostaligia and the end of an era. ‘A masterpiece: grandiose style; brilliant and rich. It will defy the ages’ Trouw (The Netherlands) ‘The love of my life lives in my past. That is; despite the alliteration; a terrible sentence to write. I do not want to come to the conclusion that; as it is the case for the hotel where I am staying and the continent after which it is named; the best time is behind me and that I have little more to expect from the future than to live on my past.’ A writer takes residence in the illustrious but decaying Grand Hotel Europa; to think about where things went wrong with Clio; with whom he fell in love in Genoa and moved to Venice. He reconstructs a compelling story of love in times of mass tourism; about their trips to Malta; Palmaria; Portovenere and the Cinque Terre and their thrilling search for the last painting of Caravaggio. Meanwhile; he becomes fascinated by the mysteries of Grand Hotel Europe and gets more and more involved with the memorable characters who inhabit it; and who seem to come from a more elegant time. All the while; globalisation seems to be grabbing hold even on this place frozen in time. Grand Hotel Europa is Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer’s masterly novel on the old continent; where so much history resides that there is no place left for a future and where the most realistic future perspectives are offered in the form of exploiting the past in the shape of tourism.