This novel by Nobel Prizewinning author Patrick Modiano is one of the most seductive and accessible in his oeuvre: the story of a mans memories of fleeing responsibility, finding love, and searching for meaning in an uncertain world The narrator of Villa Triste , an anxious, roving, stateless young man of eighteen, arrives in a small French lakeside town near Switzerland in the early 1960s. He is fleeing the atmosphere of menace he feels around him and the fear that grips him. Fear of war? Of imminent catastrophe? Of others? Whatever it may be, the proximity of Switzerland, to which he plans to run at the first sign of danger, gives him temporary reassurance. The young man hides among the other summer visitors until he meets a beautiful young actress named Yvonne Jacquet, and a strange doctor, René Meinthe. These two invite him into their world of soirees and late-night debauchery. But when real life beckons once again, he finds no sympathy from his new companions. Modiano has written a haunting novel that captures lost youth, the search for identity, and ultimately, the fleetingness of time.
An impressive coming-of-age novel and a gripping investigation into the life of a mysterious author. A prolific novel and a true ode to literature in the vein of Roberto Bolaños
A poignant, incisive meditation on Israels longstanding rejection of peace, and what the war on Gaza means for Zionism.
When apartheid in South Africa ended, dismantled by internal activism and global pressure, why did Israel continue to pursue its own apartheid policies against Palestinians? In keeping with a history of antagonism, the Jewish state established settlements in the Occupied Territories as extreme right-wing voices gained prominence in Israeli government, with comparatively little international backlash--in fact, these policies were boosted by the Oslo Accords.
Condensing this complex history into a lucid essay, Raja Shehadeh examines the many lost opportunities to promote a lasting peace and equality between Israelis and Palestinians. Since the creation of Israel in 1948, known to Palestinians as the Nakba, or catastrophe, each sides perception of events has strongly diverged. What can this discrepancy tell us about Israels undermining of a two-state solution? And will the current genocide in Gaza finally mark a shift in the worlds response?;
With graceful, haunting prose, Shehadeh offers insights into a defining conflict that could yet be ameliorated.
In this heartbreaking yet hopeful autobiographical novel, an acclaimed Italian author who lost his partner to suicide testifies to the power of storytelling in living with grief.
When in 1999 30-year-old Matteo B. Bianchi published his debut novel--a scathing portrait of the sentimental education of a gay boy from Milan in the 1980s--the timing couldn't be worse: he had just lost S., the man he'd lived with for 7 years, who one day, a few months after they broke up, decided to hang himself in their apartment.
Matteo is the first to find the body, to scream without being able to scream. From that day a "dark labyrinth" ensnares him, a whirlpool of suffering, made up of contradictory feelings and constant bewilderment, which unites all the so-called survivors of the suicide of a loved one. Matteo seems to be the unhappy protagonist of a rare event as he feels a unique pain, perversely special. However, at the same time, even in the darkest days, the writer who lives in him starts taking notes. At first, they are just fragments, shards of an existence shattered into a thousand pieces, echoes of feelings alive like nerves that Matteo reports unabashedly on the page. Then, they slowly transform and, memory after memory, become a profound and intimate conversation with S. and the pain, between the temptation to let go and the desire to get back to life.
Both radical and vulnerable, intimate and universal,
A resilient Greek woman recounts her and her family's remarkable story at the end of her life, marked by the great historical events of the twentieth century.
Born in 1938, Niki, the daughter of the deputy secretary general of the Greek Communist Party, is swept up in turmoil before her first birthday: her parents are arrested, and she joins her mother in exile on an island near Santorini. Growing up, she experiences the Italian and German invasion, the Nazi occupation, and the civil war that came after, often caught between her socialist values and those of the right-wing establishment, to which half her relatives belong.
;;;;;;;; Through her memories and the stories of her family, with roots on both coasts of the Aegean Sea, Niki also tells the history of Greece and Asia Minor from the late nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth. Her extraordinary tales, full of humor and verve in spite of hardship, are populated by working-class heroes, privileged elites, daring revolutionaries, and free-spirited bohemians.
B>This intimate account offers a new, unexpected understanding of the artists work and of the vibrant 1930s surrealist scene./b>br> br> In 1938, just as she was leaving Mexico for her first solo exhibition in New York, Frida Kahlo was devastated to learn from her husband, Diego Rivera, that he intended to divorce her. This latest blow followed a long series of betrayals, most painful of all his affair with her beloved younger sister, Cristina. In early 1939, anxious and adrift, Kahlo traveled from the United States to France--her only trip to Europe, and the beginning of a unique period of her life when she was enjoying success on her own.br> br> Now, for the first time, this previously overlooked part of her story is brought to light in exquisite detail. Marc Petitjean takes the reader to Paris, where Kahlo spends her days alongside luminaries such as Pablo Picasso, André Breton, Dora Maar, and Marcel Duchamp.br> br> Using Kahlos whirlwind romance with the authors father, Michel Petitjean, as a jumping-off point, The Heart: Frida Kahlo in Paris provides a striking portrait of the artist and an inside look at the history of one of her most powerful, enigmatic paintings.
B>b>From the acclaimed author of Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, a deeply personal and insightful account of being a girl, woman, and mother in a world that sees the feminine as less than./b>/b>br>br>Born in 1959 to a middle-class family, Laurence Barraqué grows up with her sister in the northern city of Rouen. Her father is a doctor, her mother a housewife. She understands from an early age, by way of language and her parents example, that a girls place in life is inferior to a boys: Asked for the 1964 census whether he has any children, her father promptly responds, No. I have two daughters. When Laurence eventually becomes a mother herself in the nineties, she grapples with the question of what it means to be a girl, to have a girl, and what lessons she should try to pass down or undo.br>;br>Masterful in her analysis of the subtle and obvious ways women are undermined by a sexist society, Camille Laurens lays out her experiences of the past forty years in this poignant, powerful book. Girl is at once intimate and sweeping in its depiction of the great challenges we face, such as equalizing the education system and transmitting feminist values to the younger generations.
In 1980s South Korea, 20-something Jung Yoon is forced to re-live the most intense period of her life, including the death of her beloved mother, first love and friendship, when she receives a distressing phone call from her ex-boyfriend after eight years of separation. Original.
B>b>From the internationally bestselling author of The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, a moving tale of forbidden love and extraordinary courage in the face of disaster. /b>/b>br>br>Eighteen-year-old Niri and his family live a modest but secure life working in the villa of the wealthy Benzes. But when the pandemic comes, they are all let go, and left staring into the abyss of abject poverty. As their situation grows increasingly desperate, the once rule-abiding monastery student decides he wont wait at the mercy of a corrupt, indifferent government, and rebels against his fathers resigned acceptance.br>;;;;;;;;;;; Sneaking through the locked-down city at night, past the military patrols, Niri returns to the villa to take what his family needs to survive. Waiting for him there is his childhood friend--and the Benzes daughter--Mary, who has a bigger plan that will change their lives forever.br>A universal story of love across social classes, The Rebel and the Thief poignantly shows how adversity can teach us what matters most: courage to resist, will to change, and unconditional trust in each other.
B>b>A New York Times bestseller and a "Best Thriller of the Year/b>"br>br>b>Winner of the Goncourt Prize and now an international phenomenon, this dizzying, whip-smart novel blends crime, fantasy, sci-fi, and thriller as it plumbs the mysteries surrounding a Paris-New York flight./b>/b>br>br>Who would we be if we had made different choices? Told that secret, left that relationship, written that book? We all wonder--the passengers of Air France 006 will find out. br>br>In their own way, they were all living double lives when they boarded the plane:br> Blake, a respectable family man who works as a contract killer.br> Slimboy, a Nigerian pop star who uses his womanizing image to hide that hes gay.br> Joanna, a Black American lawyer pressured to play the good old boys game to succeed with her Big Pharma client.br> Victor Miesel, a critically acclaimed yet largely obscure writer suddenly on the precipice of global fame.br> About to start their descent to JFK, they hit a shockingly violent patch of turbulence, emerging on the other side to a reality both perfectly familiar and utterly strange. As it charts the fallout of this logic-defying event, The Anomaly takes us on a journey from Lagos and Mumbai to the White House and a top-secret hangar.br> In Hervé Le Telliers most ambitious work yet, high literature follows the lead of a bingeable Netflix series, drawing on the best of genre fiction from chick lit to mystery, while also playfully critiquing their hallmarks. An ingenious, timely variation on the doppelgänger theme, it taps into the parts of ourselves that elude us most.
A billionaire Holocaust survivor hires a writer to uncover the truth of Salvador Allendes death, and they must confront their own dark histories to find a path forward--for themselves and for our ravaged planet.
An expansive, engrossing mystery for fans of Isabel Allende, Jeff;VanderMeer, and Bill McKibben, from the acclaimed author of Ariel needed money, and Joseph;Hortha;had it. Bound by gratitude toward the late Chilean president and a persistent need to know whether murder or suicide ended his life during the 1973 coup, the two men embark on an investigation that will take them from Washington DC and New York, to Santiago and Valparaiso, and finally to London. They encounter an unforgettable cast of characters: a wedding photographer who can predict a couples future; a policeman in pursuit of the serial killer targeting refugees; a revolutionary caught trying to assassinate a dictator; and, above all, the complex women who support them along the way, for their own obscure reasons.;
;;;;Before Ariel and Joseph can resolve a quest full of dangers and enigmas, they must help each other come to terms with guilt and trauma from personal catastrophes hidden deep in the past. What begins as an intriguing literary caper unfolds into a propulsive, philosophical saga about love, family,;machismo, fascism, and exile that asks what we owe the world, one another, and ourselves. By;boldly mixing fiction and reality, imagination and history,
Given a second chance with an old love, a coolly detached archivist questions the life he could have had, and whether its not too late to live it.
A poignant, ingeniously constructed new novel from one of Europes most exciting writers ( Forty years ago--almost a lifetime--he confessed his love to a classmate and close friend, Franziska. Now, living in his late mothers house with the obsolete archive of the newspaper he once worked for, he looks back on days spent poring over files and clippings, increasingly withdrawn from the world. His occasional relationships never amounted to anything, and the memory of Franziska--who became pop singer Fabienne--continues to haunt him as she appears in the media.
When the two cross paths again, the possibility of a different life feels achingly real. But should he risk the comfort of his ordered existence for a romance that might never match what he imagined?
A subtle, mesmerizing portrait of late-blooming passion,
These dazzling stories from the internationally acclaimed author of
In the 1990s, a woman makes a living as a rental girlfriend for gay men. In a Harlem den, a travesti gets to know none other than Billie Holiday. A group of rugby players haggle over the price of a night of sex, and in return they get what they deserve. Nuns, grandmothers, children, and dogs are never what they seem...
These 9 stories are inhabited by extravagant and profoundly human characters who face an ominous reality in ways as strange as themselves.
A breathtaking story of unfulfilled dreams, unexpected second chances, and love in a present-day France turning against itself, from the Goncourt Prize-winning author of
Hélène is approaching 40. Born in a small town in the east of France, she worked hard to leave it behind and achieve a life worthy of the glossy magazines she pored over as a teen. But now that she seemingly has it all-a husband and two daughters, a successful career, and a custom-designed house near Nancy-she feels unfulfilled, as though the years have passed her by.
Christophe just turned 40 and has never left his little corner of France, where he grew up with Hélène. No longer as handsome as he used to be, he's led an unassuming life, preferring to party with friends than to apply himself. These days, he's selling dog food, dreaming of playing hockey again like he did when he was 16, and living with his father and son-a quiet, indecisive existence, which could be seen as failure. And yet he fully believes that anything is still possible.
Through the story of how their two disparate lives intersect once more,
In this poignant account of a classmates suicide, the acclaimed Moroccan author gives both a biting critique of small-town bigotry in the 1960s and a moving tribute to the fleeting beauty of adolescence.
In Settat in the 1960s, when it was still a tiny village, a young man leapt to his death in front of his stunned class and their teacher, left holding a brief, devastating suicide note. Among the students was Mohamed Leftah. Haunted by the uncommon grace of that desperate act, and the tragic image of his body lying in the courtyard, Leftah penned this chronicle of life at the time, marked by repressed desire and shame.
A fiery yet thoughtful meditation on taboo acts--homosexuality, adultery, suicide--and the hypocrisy and cruelty often found in those who judge them,
In this unique work, Thomas Piketty presents a synthesis of his historical and comparative research on inequalities. Addressing topics as varied as education, inheritance, the climate crisis, the taxation of wealth, and gender disparities, it challenges the idea that there could be natural inequalities and shows that the march toward equality has always depended on political and social struggles.
;;;;;;;;;;; Adapted from Piketty's 2022 lecture at the Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac,
He was the brother of «the Arab» killed by the infamous Meursault, the antihero of Camus's classic novel. Seventy years after that event, Harun, who has lived since childhood in the shadow of his sibling's memory, refuses to let him remain anonymous: he gives his brother a story and a name-Musa-and describes the events that led to Musa's casual murder on a dazzlingly sunny beach.
A brutal fable full of poetry, desire, and blood, where the naïveté of a young Haitian girl struggling against impossible odds collides with the unrelenting cruelty of the world.
"You will be alone in the great night." That's what Papa has always prophesied to her. Papa, who isn't her real father--he disappeared when she was born. Since then, her mother has been forced to walk the streets to provide for herself and her daughter, while Papa robs and murders for the local gang leader, to ensure his access to ganja and alcohol, but also for the sheer pleasure of it.
Often finding herself alone within the four walls of a hovel in a Haitian slum with corrugated iron for a roof, the young girl tirelessly tries to compose a letter that will capture what is in her heart and soul. She is consumed with love for a classmate, the daughter of her teacher, and struggles to find words to faithfully express her feelings and her dreams.
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In a poetic language that encompasses poverty and idealism, she quietly observes the violence, the shortcomings, and the addictions of the adults around her. Her love and passion make her resilient, nurturing her character and helping her to invent a destiny that enables her to escape the fate to which she seemed doomed.
In this urgent, insightful essay, a respected historian places the Israeli-Palestinian war in context, challenging Western attitudes about the region.
Is the destruction of Gaza only a consequence of the October 7, 2023 attack, or is it also the outcome of a long process of dispossession and eradication? Do Palestinians have the right to resist the occupation? Is talking about genocide anti-Semitism? Enzo Traverso goes to the root of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by calling history into question and offers a critical interpretation that overturns the one-sided perspective from which we have become accustomed to observing what is happening in Gaza.
Israel is usually described as a democratic island in the middle of an obscurantist ocean, and Hamas as a movement inspired by bloodthirsty fanaticism. The destruction of Gaza is reminiscent of the golden age of colonialism, when the West perpetrated genocides in Asia and Africa in the name of its civilizing mission. Its essential assumptions remain the same: civilization versus barbarism, progress versus intolerance. Alongside the ritual statements about Israel's right to defend itself, no one ever mentions the Palestinians' right to resist decades-long aggression. But if a genocidal war is unleashed in the name of fighting anti-Semitism, it is our own ethical values and political norms that are tarnished: the assumptions of our moral conscience--the distinction between oppressor and oppressed, perpetrators and victims--risk being turned upside down. The October 7 attack was terrifying, but it must be analyzed and not just condemned. And we must do so by summoning all the critical tools of historical research. Should the war in Gaza end in a second Nakba, Israel's legitimacy will be permanently compromised. In that case, neither American weapons nor Western media, nor the distorted and outraged memory of the Holocaust will be able to redeem it.
Set in a German spa town wracked by climate change, this intense, enthralling debut explores trust, abuse, and solidarity through the unexpected bond between two women.
When Iris took over the family hotel from her grandfather, Bad Heim was still a popular spa town. But now fierce forest fires rage in the area, spewing smoke into the air. The;summers are dry and hot and never seem to end. Guests have become a rare sight. But suddenly, a young mother shows up with her small daughter and asks for a room. Something doesn't seem right about her. Does she need help? Or even pose a threat?
Franziska Gänsler's debut conjures up the heat of the fires, the ashes falling on skin, and the all-pervading smell of smoke. Yet you will want to stay with these women in this inhospitable place as they draw closer together and prepare to fight for their freedom.
b>b>A dazzling family saga, brimming with poetry and passion, that skillfully weaves together the private lives of individuals and major historical events in South America and Europe.; /b>/b>br>br>The house on Calle Santo Domingo in Santiago de Chile, with its lush lemon trees, has sheltered three generations of the Lonsonier family. Having arrived from the harsh hills of France's Jura region with a single grape vine in one pocket and a handful of change in the other, the patriarch put down roots there in the late nineteenth century. His son, Lazare, back from World War I's hellish trenches, would live there with his wife and build in their garden the most beautiful aviary in the Andes.br>;;;;;;;;That's where their daughter Margot, a pioneering aviator, would first dream of flying, and where she would raise her son, the revolutionary Ilario Da. Like Lazare before them, they will bravely face the conflicts of their day, fighting against dictatorship on both sides of the Atlantic.br>;;;;;;;;In this captivating saga, Miguel Bonnefoy paints the portrait of an endearing, uprooted family whose terrible dilemmas, caused by the blows of history, reveal their deep humanity.
b>b>Named a Best Book of the Year by The Times (UK) and the Los Angeles Public Library/b> br>br>Winner of the 2018 Goncourt Prize, this poignant coming-of-age tale captures the distinct feeling of summer in a region left behind by global progress./b>br>br>August 1992. One afternoon during a heatwave in a desolate valley somewhere in eastern France, with its dormant blast furnaces and its lake, fourteen-year-old Anthony and his cousin decide to steal a canoe to explore the famous nude beach across the water. The trip ultimately takes Anthony to his first love and a summer that will determine everything that happens afterward.br> br> Nicolas Mathieu conjures up a valley, an era, and the political journey of a young generation that has to forge its own path in a dying world. Four summers and four defining moments, from "Smells Like Teen Spirit" to the 1998 World Cup, encapsulate the hectic lives of the inhabitants of a France far removed from the centers of globalization, torn between decency and rage.
