Sign-In
Cart
Le Train D Alger
Paperback
Series: La Bleue
Please select the version of book you would like to purchase.
ISBN10: 2234079071
ISBN13: 9782234079076
Publisher: Stock
Published: Jan 13 2016
Pages: 240
Weight: 0.66
Height: 0.55 Width: 5.32 Depth: 8.47
Language: French
ISBN13: 9782234079076
Publisher: Stock
Published: Jan 13 2016
Pages: 240
Weight: 0.66
Height: 0.55 Width: 5.32 Depth: 8.47
Language: French
THE ALGIERS TRAIN
I can't seem to prioritise all the things I want to tell you. The minute I step into your office, I feel as if my ideas shatter into a thousand pieces, like the windows of our apartment in Algiers.
This woman's first childhood memory, her paradox of a founding memory was Bang! A bang that still makes her shudder fifty years later, the sound of a train exploding, thanks to mines set by the National Liberation Front, when she was a child of three on an outing with her mother. The carriage looking like a beached whale, the panic, the blood, bodies lying in the street, names erased from letter boxes in horrifying anticipation, neighbours disappearing like ghosts, death prowling the streets like a dog without a master - the Algerian war seen through the eyes of a little girl who escaped thanks to her powerful imagination. With an ever-present temptation to derail herself as her parents grow old and start rambling, she describes the disaster in all its fairyland wonder.
In brief chapters, this account shifts from hyperrealism to the dazzlingly poetic, led by a narrator who adopts the playful tone of a casual tour guide in hell.
Béatrice Fontanel's previous books are L'homme barbelé (Grasset, 2009) and Plus noire avant l'aube (Stock, 2014) along with many books for children.
I can't seem to prioritise all the things I want to tell you. The minute I step into your office, I feel as if my ideas shatter into a thousand pieces, like the windows of our apartment in Algiers.
This woman's first childhood memory, her paradox of a founding memory was Bang! A bang that still makes her shudder fifty years later, the sound of a train exploding, thanks to mines set by the National Liberation Front, when she was a child of three on an outing with her mother. The carriage looking like a beached whale, the panic, the blood, bodies lying in the street, names erased from letter boxes in horrifying anticipation, neighbours disappearing like ghosts, death prowling the streets like a dog without a master - the Algerian war seen through the eyes of a little girl who escaped thanks to her powerful imagination. With an ever-present temptation to derail herself as her parents grow old and start rambling, she describes the disaster in all its fairyland wonder.
In brief chapters, this account shifts from hyperrealism to the dazzlingly poetic, led by a narrator who adopts the playful tone of a casual tour guide in hell.
Béatrice Fontanel's previous books are L'homme barbelé (Grasset, 2009) and Plus noire avant l'aube (Stock, 2014) along with many books for children.
Also from
Fontanel, Béatrice
Also in
Literary Fiction
Elizabeth Spencer: Novels & Stories (Loa #344): The Voice at the Back Door / The Light in the Piazza / Knights and Dragons / Stories
Spencer, Elizabeth
Hardcover
$38.00
Philip Roth: Novels 1973-1977 (Loa #165): The Great American Novel / My Life as a Man / The Professor of Desire
Roth, Philip
Hardcover
From $17.99
John Updike: Novels 1978-1984 (Loa #339): The Coup / Rabbit Is Rich / The Witches of Eastwick
Updike, John
Hardcover
$42.75
The Patrick Melrose Novels: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, and Mother's Milk
St Aubyn, Edward
Paperback
From $9.99