Maya

This book addresses the big ideas: the creation of the universe, the evolution of life on earth, the emergence of human beings, the nature of consciousness and the purpose of human existence. These are the thoughts that occupy the characters from their chance meeting on the Fijian island of Taveuni: John Spooke, an English author who is grieving for his dead wife; Frank Andersen, a Norwegian evolutionary biologist who has lost a child and is estranged from his wife Vera; and an enigmatic Spanish couple, Ana and Jose, who are absorbed in their love for each other.

Their stories are intertwined and so strewn with mysteries and illusions that it is difficult to say where one ends and the next begins, or if the accounts the characters give of themselves can be believed. As the action moves from Fiji to Spain, and between the present and the past, the novel reveals an astonishing richness and complexity.