Its story follows Pereira, a journalist for the culture column of a small Lisbon newspaper, as he struggles with his conscience and the restrictions of the dictatorial regime of Antonio Salazar.
The articles he receives from Monteiro Rossi (and pays him for) have a definite leftist slant and are completely unpublishable, but something continues to attract Pereira to him, perhaps the fact that his wife died before he could have children of his own.
With the help of a phone call from his doctor friend, Pereira manages to slip an article about the murder and condemning the regime into the newspaper he works for, then flees the country using a fake passport.
Pereira's rightist editor suggests: Lawrence Venuti of The New York Times pointed out that the book became a success in Italy as a symbol of resistance against Silvio Berlusconi's government.
... Tabucchi now takes his place alongside Irène Némirovsky, Sándor Márai and Stefan Zweig as one of the great Continental rediscoveries for English-speaking readers of recent years.