How do people come to perform heroic deeds? This novella is one of the best character studies I have read - Pereira's actions speak for themselves while we simultaneously sort through Pereira's own moral confusion steeped in loneliness, depression, and poor health.

Surely, this testimony has been written for the confessional rather than the courtroom; this is what I would declare.

I learned of this book from 'Discontent and its Civilizations: Dispatches from Lahore, New York and London' by Moshin Hamid, another great writer of short books with strong moral compasses.