Mefisto

By: John Banville

Published by David R. Godine Publisher, 2026-03-10

"A dark and glittering parable of ambition and ruin."--The Guardian

A Faustian fever dream of numbers, knowledge, and the darkness that lurks beyond comprehension.

Gabriel Swan is a gifted mathematician who sees the world not in words, but in numbers. Compelled to find the elusive code behind life itself, he plunges into a search for absolute meaning. But when he meets Felix--a charismatic, otherworldly stranger who seems to hold the answers--Gabriel's journey takes a darker turn.

As Gabriel's intellectual pursuits give way to emotional chaos, he finds himself at the mercy of strange encounters, physical ruin, and moral confusion. Is Felix a savior, a devil, or merely a mirror of Gabriel's own unraveling?

Inspired by the legend of Faust, Mefisto is a dazzling, philosophical novel about genius, obsession, and the limits of rationality. With his trademark prose--elegant, luminous, and hypnotic--Banville transforms myth into a haunting study of human fragility and the borders of reality.