With its
panoramic vision and generous spirit,
The Art of Losing finds shoots of hope amid the stony landscapes of the past.Remarkable . . . Because it deals with immigration, nationalism and Islam,
it speaks urgently to our time . . .
a novel about people that never loses its sense of humanity.Visceral . . . An incredible [book] . . . that requires rapt attention. It is a novel that scales the walls of history and excavates lessons with curiosity and anger.This pacy, complex piece of historical fiction (which was nominated for France‰۪s most prestigious literary award, the Prix Goncourt)
explores the tangled reality of identity.If you think of historical fiction as a way of translating the past, does your perspective change when that fiction has been translated from another language? . . . This added dimension can make a book even richer, even more provocative. And none demonstrates that better than . . .
The Art of Losing.
Ms. Zeniter‰۪s extraordinary achievement is to transform a complicated conflict into a compelling family chronicle, rich in visual detail and lustrous in language.An
exceptional novel, a masterful meditation on the negative space of history. With surgical control and deep emotional precision, Alice Zeniter tells the story of a family at once severed from and forever tethered to its past.A deeply human text about the ghosts of identity and decolonization.A captivating exploration of the unspoken stories of the Algerian war.A powerful family saga . . . [Zeniter] shows how history is passed down from generation to generation, in stories pockmarked by what‰۪s left unsaid.Zeniter captures all manner of emotions one might imagine, and others that would not occur to those of us who have never had to endure such trauma.A powerful and moving family story about history, immigration and identity, spanning three generations and some seventy years across the two shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
Winner of the International Dublin Literary Award
'Remarkable . . . a novel about people that never loses its sense of humanity.' Sunday Times
'Zeniter‰۪s extraordinary achievement is to transform a complicated conflict into a compelling family chronicle' Wall Street Journal
NaÌøma has always known that her family came from Algeria ‰ÛÒ but up until now, that meant very little to her. Born and raised in France, her knowledge of that foreign country is limited to what she‰۪s learned from her grandparents‰۪ tiny flat in a crumbling French sink estate: the food cooked for her, the few precious things they brought with them when they fled.
On the past, her family is silent. Why was her grandfather Ali forced to leave? Was he a harki ‰ÛÒ an Algerian who worked for and supported the French during the Algerian War of Independence? Once a wealthy landowner, how did he become an immigrant scratching a living in France?
NaÌøma‰۪s father, Hamid, says he remembers nothing. A child when the family left, in France he re-made himself: education was his ticket out of the family home, the key to acceptance into French society.
But now, for the first time since they left, one of Ali‰۪s family is going back. NaÌøma will see Algeria for herself, will ask the questions about her family‰۪s history that, till now, have had no answers.
Spanning three generations across seventy years, Alice Zeniter‰۪s The Art of Losing tells the story of how people carry on in the face of loss: the loss of a country, an identity, a way to speak to your children. It‰۪s a story of colonization and immigration, and how in some ways, we are a product of the things we‰۪ve left behind.
Translated from the French by Frank Wynne
Alice Zeniter
is a French novelist, translator, scriptwriter and director. Her novel
Take This Man was published in English in 2011. Zeniter has won many awards for her work in France, including the Prix Litt̩raire de la Porte Dor̩e
, the Prix Renaudot des Lyc̩ens and the Prix Goncourt des Lyc̩ens, which was awarded to
The Art of Losing. She lives in Britanny, France.
