W or The Memory of Childhood by Georges Perec (English) Paperback Book

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Written in alternating chapters, W or the Memory of Childhood, tells two parallel tales, in two parts. The other story is about two people called Gaspard Winckler: one an eight-year-old deaf-mute lost in a shipwreck, the other a man despatched to search for him, who discovers W, an island state based on the rules of sport.

FORMATPaperback LANGUAGEEnglish CONDITIONBrand New Publisher Description

A disturbing, ground-breaking book about Perec's wartime childhood, and about where truth and fiction overlapWritten in alternating chapters, W or the Memory of Childhood, tells two parallel tales, in two parts. One is a story created in childhood and about childhood. The other story is about two people called Gaspard Winckler- one an eight-year-old deaf-mute lost in a shipwreck, the other a man despatched to search for him, who discovers W, an island state based on the rules of sport. As the two tales move in and out of focus, the disturbing truth about the island of W reveals itself.Perec combines fiction and autobiography in unprecedented ways, allowing no easy escape from these stories, or from history.

Notes

A disturbing, ground-breaking book about Perec's wartime childhood, and about where truth and fiction overlap

Back Cover

'It's as horrifying as Orwell but as ludicrous as Monty Python... brilliant' David Mitchell Written in alternating chapters, W or the Memory of Childhood tells two parallel tales, in two parts. One is a story created in childhood and about childhood. The other is about two people called Gaspard Winckler: one an eight-year-old deaf-mute lost in a shipwreck, the other a man despatched to search for him, who discovers W, an island state based on the rules of sport. As the two tales move in and out of focus, the disturbing truth about the island of W reveals itself. TRANSLATED BY DAVID BELLOS See also: Things and A Man Asleep

Author Biography

Georges Perec (1936-82) won the Prix Renaudot in 1965 for his first novel Things- A Story of the Sixties, and went on to exercise his unrivalled mastery of language in almost every imaginable kind of writing, from the apparently trivial to the deeply personal. He composed acrostics, anagrams, autobiography, criticism, crosswords, descriptions of dreams, film scripts, heterograms, lipograms, memories, palindromes, plays, poetry, radio plays, recipes, riddles, stories short and long, travel notes, univocalics, and, of course, novels. Life- A User's Manual, which draws on many of Perec's other works, appeared in 1978 after nine years in the making and was acclaimed a masterpiece to put beside Joyce's Ulysses. It won the Prix Medicis and established Perec's international reputation.

Review

Perec was a haunted writer, haunted by his Jewish ancestry, by the Holocaust that coincided with his own orphaned childhood, by the death of his father in 1940 and his mother's disappearance in Auschwitz. Writing, for him, was an act of exorcism * Sunday Times *A strange and complicated book, a work of tremendous, silenced emotion * Observer *His brilliant and profound memoir-fantasy deserves to be recognised for what it is: a masterpiece * Guardian *The childhood story of 'W' carries Perec's confused conception of the concentration camps...bewilderingly sad * Independent *Perec was a polymathic genius, and his early death in 1982 (he was only 45) robbed France of its most dazzling experimental writer, one who tried everything and failed at nothing...He has, deservedly, become a cult in France, particularly with young Parisians, who instinctively (and rightly) identify him as the super-zapper, the biographer of their fragmented consumer culture, of which he was himself the creation. * Glasgow Herald *

Promotional

A disturbing, ground-breaking book about Perec's wartime childhood, and about where truth and fiction overlap

Review Text

Perec was a haunted writer, haunted by his Jewish ancestry, by the Holocaust that coincided with his own orphaned childhood, by the death of his father in 1940 and his mother's disappearance in Auschwitz. Writing, for him, was an act of exorcism

Review Quote

Perec was a haunted writer, haunted by his Jewish ancestry, by the Holocaust that coincided with his own orphaned childhood, by the death of his father in 1940 and his mother's disappearance in Auschwitz. Writing, for him, was an act of exorcism

Promotional "Headline"

A disturbing, ground-breaking book about Perec's wartime childhood, and about where truth and fiction overlap

Details ISBN0099552353 Author David Bellos Pages 176 Year 2011 ISBN-10 0099552353 ISBN-13 9780099552352 Format Paperback Imprint Vintage Classics Place of Publication London Country of Publication United Kingdom DEWEY 843.914 Death 1982 Media Book Short Title W OR THE MEMORY OF A CHILDHOOD Language English Publisher Vintage Publishing Publication Date 2011-03-03 UK Release Date 2011-03-03 AU Release Date 2011-03-03 NZ Release Date 2011-03-03 Translated from French Translator David Bellos Edited by Jan Bowmer Birth 1969 Affiliation Boston University School of Medicine Position Editor Qualifications MBE Alternative 9781446468685 Audience General We've got this

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