Memoirs from Beyond the Grave: 1815-1830
6.990 kr.In 1815—with Bonaparte on the isle of Elba and the Napoleonic era at an end—François-René de Chateaubriand seemed poised, like the Bourbon royal family he’d so long supported, to wield unprecedented power in France. Already one of the country’s most celebrated writers, he now became an ambassador (with posts in Berlin, London, and Rome) and, for a time, minister of foreign affairs. Yet as passionate as Chateaubriand was about the cause of the Bourbons in theory, in reality he was a recalcitrant subject. Part liberal, part ultraconservative, a warmonger with his head in the clouds, he quarreled with both Louis XVIII and Charles X and eventually tendered his resignation altogether, just in time for the July Revolution, which brought the Restoration to a close and allowed Chateaubriand to go back to praising the Bourbons, now safely exiled in the realm of the ideal.
As always in Memoirs from Beyond the Grave, Chateaubriand narrates the events of his era unforgettably. His accounts of international politics, and the papal conclave, and the revolutionary strife of 1830 (so different from the revolutionary strife of his youth) are gripping. His digressions, however, are the main event, and readers will be glad to find him wandering around Paris and Rome, reflecting on storms and ruins, moonlight and mortality.
Street of Thieves
3.990 kr.In Tangier, young Lakhdar finds himself homeless after being caught in flagrante with his cousin Meryem. As the political and religious tensions in the Mediterranean flare up with the Arab Spring and the global financial crisis, Lakhdar and his friend Bassam entertain dreams of emigration, fuelled by a desire for freedom and a better life. Part political thriller, part road-movie, part romance, the latest novel by Mathias Enard takes us from the violence of Tangier’s streets to Barcelona’s louche Raval quarter.
Street of Thieves is an intense coming-of-age story that delves deep into the brutal realities of the immigrant experience.
Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants
3.990 kr.In 1506, Michelangelo – a young but already renowned sculptor – is invited by the sultan of Constantinople to design a bridge over the Golden Horn. The sultan has offered, alongside an enormous payment, the promise of immortality, since Leonardo da Vinci’s design was rejected: ‘You will surpass him in glory if you accept, for you will succeed where he has failed, and you will give the world a monument without equal.’ Michelangelo, after some hesitation, flees Rome and an irritated Pope Julius II – whose commission he leaves unfinished – and arrives in Constantinople for this truly epic project. Once there, he explores the beauty and wonder of the Ottoman Empire, sketching and describing his impressions along the way, and becomes immersed in cloak-and-dagger palace intrigues as he struggles to create what could be his greatest architectural masterwork.
Tell Them of Battles, Kings and Elephants – constructed from real historical fragments – is a thrilling page-turner about why stories are told, why bridges are built, and how seemingly unmatched pieces, seen from the opposite sides of civilization, can mirror one another.
Sjáið okkur dansa
990 kr.Aisha er augasteinn foreldra sinna, marokkóska landeigandans Amins og Mathilde sem kemur frá Alsace í Frakklandi og hefur fylgt manni sínum til þessa framandi lands. Aisha stefnir á að verða læknir og ekkert truflar það, ekki einu sinni þegar hún verður ástfangin af ungum hagfræðingi sem lítur út og hugsar eins og Karl Marx. Aðrir í fjölskyldunni glíma við flóknari vandamál í lífi og ástum enda miklir umbrotatímar í Marokkó á sjöunda áratug 20. aldar. Vestrænir hippar flæða inn í landið og mikil ólga er í þjóðlífinu vegna misskiptingar, harðstjórnar og togstreitu milli gamalla og nýrra gilda.
Sjáið okkur dansa er annað bindið í þríleik Leïlu Slimani sem hún byggir á ættarsögu sinni en fyrsta bókin, Í landi annarra, kom út á íslensku árið 2021 og var afar vel tekið.
Friðrik Rafnsson þýddi.
Í landi annarra
990 kr.Í landi annarra er hjartnæm og hrífandi skáldsaga sem dregur upp ljóslifandi mynd af marokkósku samfélagi á árum sjálfstæðisbaráttunnar. Þetta er fyrsta bókin í þríleik sem byggður er á ættarsögu höfundarins.
Örlög Mathilde ráðast í lok síðari heimsstyrjaldarinnar þegar frönsk herdeild nýlendubúa hefur viðdvöl í þorpinu hennar í Alsace. Myndarlegur liðsforingi frá Marokkó fangar hug hennar og hjarta og þegar stríðinu lýkur fylgir hún honum til heimalandsins. Með ástina og hugrekkið að vopni tekst hún á við framandi samfélag í hrjóstrugu landi þar sem ungu hjónin mæta erfiðleikum og fordómum – bæði af hendi innfæddra og frönsku nýlenduherranna.
Leïla Slimani ólst upp í Marokkó en býr í Frakklandi. Hún sló í gegn með Barnagælu, magnaðri glæpaskáldsögu sem hlaut hin virtu Goncourt-verðlaun, varð metsölubók og hefur komið út víða um heim, meðal annars hér á landi.
Friðrik Rafnsson þýddi.
Kæri fáviti
4.690 kr.Í Kæri fáviti skiptast þrjár ólíkar raddir á að segja frá – útskúfaður rithöfundur, þekkt leikkona og róttækur femínisti. Í gegnum tölvupóstsamskipti þeirra fáum við innlit í heim sem er gegnsýrður af kynbundinni valdbeitingu, afleiðingum #MeToo, fíkn, vináttu og leit að merkingu í heimi sem virðist oft vera að hrynja.
Kæri fáviti er óþægilega heiðarleg og snjöll samtímasaga frá einum áhrifamesta höfundi Frakklands. Bókin varð að metsölubók og hratt af stað mikilli umræðu um kynferðislega áreitni og jafnrétti á tímum samfélagsmiðla.
New Yorker valdi Kæra fávita á lista yfir bestu bækur ársins 2024.
Kristín Jónsdóttir þýddi úr frönsku.
Nausea
3.490 kr.Nausea is the story of Antoine Roquentin, a French writer who is horrified at his own existence. In impressionistic, diary form he ruthlessly catalogs his every feeling and sensation. His thoughts culminate in a pervasive, overpowering feeling of nausea which “spreads at the bottom of the viscous puddle, at the bottom of our time ― the time of purple suspenders and broken chair seats; it is made of wide, soft instants, spreading at the edge, like an oil stain.”
Winner of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature (though he declined to accept it), Jean-Paul Sartre ― philosopher, critic, novelist, and dramatist ― holds a position of singular eminence in the world of French letters. La Nausée, his first and best novel, is a landmark in Existential fiction and a key work of the twentieth century.
The Little Prince
4.690 kr.The narrator is a downed pilot in the Sahara Desert, frantically trying to repair his wrecked plane. His efforts are interrupted one day by the apparition of a little prince, who asks him to draw a sheep. “In the face of an overpowering mystery, you don’t dare disobey,” the narrator recalls.
“Absurd as it seemed, a thousand miles from all inhabited regions and in danger of death, I took a scrap of paper and a pen out of my pocket.” And so begins their dialogue, which stretches the narrator’s imagination in all sorts of surprising, childlike directions.
The Young Man
3.190 kr.In her latest work, Annie Ernaux recounts a relationship with a student thirty years her junior – an experience that transforms her, briefly, back into the ‘scandalous girl’ of her youth. When she is with him, she replays scenes she has already lived through, feeling both ageless and closer to death. Laid like a palimpsest on the present, the past’s immediacy pushes her to take a decisive step in her writing – producing, in turn, the need to expunge her lover. At once stark and tender, The Young Man is a taut encapsulation of Ernaux’s relationship to time, memory and writing.
Based on a True Story
3.190 kr.Overwhelmed by the huge success of her latest novel, exhausted and suffering from a crippling inability to write, Delphine meets L. L. embodies everything Delphine admires; sophisticated and unusually intuitive, she slowly but deliberately carves herself a niche in the writer’s life. However, as she makes herself indispensable to Delphine, the intensity of this unexpected friendship manifests itself in increasingly sinister ways. And as their lives become further entwined, L. begins to threaten Delphine’s identity and her safety.
Bonjour Tristesse and A Certain Smile
3.190 kr.Bonjour Tristesse tells the story of Cécile, who leads a carefree life with her widowed father and his young mistresses until, one hot summer on the Riviera, he decides to remarry – with devastating consequences. In A Certain Smile, which is also included in this volume, Dominique, a young woman bored with her lover, begins an encounter with an older man that unfolds in unexpected and troubling ways.