« Reading the impeccable Retour à Buenos Aires provides a beautiful lesson on simplicity. »
— Le Monde

To fulfill the dying wishes of his uncle, our narrator, a professional librarian, will spread his ashes at the mouth of the Rio Grande. To get there, he must take a cargo ship from Le Havre, the same cargo ship his uncle was meant to take decades earlier in order to reunite with the love of his life. But something stopped him from ever taking that journey.

Our narrator spends a month on that ship, developing friendships with the Filipino kitchen staff, participating in sports, star-gazing, and trying to piece together his uncle’s past from some love letters and a mysterious telegram.

Strangely enough, taking his uncle’s urn with him gives the impression that his uncle is finally able to live the voyage he was meant to take all those years ago. And a special bond forms between our narrator and his recently departed relative.

When he arrive in Buenos Aires, a surprise is waiting for him. A surprise that looks very much like a ghost.

Daniel Fohr was the associate director of one of the largest advertising agencies in Europe. He retired last year to dedicate time to his writing. This is his first novel to be published by Slatkine et Cie.