Maylis De Kerangal

Pohjoisranskalaisen satamakaupungin Le Havren rannalta löytyy ruumis. Tunnistamattoman miehen taskussa on elokuvalippu, johon on kirjoitettu puhelinnumero. Kun nainen saa soiton poliisilta, hän lähtee tunnistamaan ruumista. Samalla hän sukeltaa lapsuuteensa ja nuoruuteensa sekä kotikaupunkinsa menneisyyteen. Mitä on siellä, mistä kaikki alkuperäinen on hävinnyt? Maylis de Kerangalin romaanin kulissi ja keskeinen hahmo on Le Havre, joka tuhoutui toisessa maailmansodassa täysin ja rakentui uusiksi betonisen modernismin opein murskautuneiden talojen kivestä. Rytmikkäässä, runollisessa romaanissa aaltoilevat sekä päähenkilön lapsuus- ja nuoruusmuistot, kadonnut rakkaus että suuren satamakaupungin kuohuva historia.

From the author of Eastbound, a New York Times Top 10 Book of the Year A colorful cast of female characters contends with UFOs, sonic waves, and the legend of Buffalo Bill in a spellbinding novella and 7 short stories about the mysteries of place and language "The translation of any of Maylis de Kerangal's books is a gift." -- Lauren Oyler, The New Yorker "De Kerangal's masterful collection examines alienation and grief at pivotal moments in her characters' lives . . . Each story is richly complex, and the collection's recurring canoe imagery gives it the feel of a treasure map . . . This understated volume packs a powerful punch." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review Ricocheting off of the book's exhilarating central novella and 7 short stories, the women we meet in Canoes are by turns indelibly witty, insightful, intimate, bracing, and profoundly interconnected. "When did I start placing myself in the fable?" a young Parisian wonders as she tells her son the legend of Buffalo Bill, a spectral presence atop the mountain in their small Colorado town. She has just moved to the United States and everything disorients her - suburbs stretching along reptilian highways, a new house rigged like a studio set, but most of all, the sound of her husband's voice. Sam speaks with a different tone in English, not the soft and swift timbre of his native French. From a voice made new, Maylis de Kerangal opens up a torrent of curiosities, hauntings, and questions about place and language. The women of these stories are mad about: stones, molds of human jaws, voicemail recordings, sonic waves, UFOs, and always how the texture of human voice entwines with their obsessions. With cosmic harmonics, vivid imagery, and a revelatory composition, Canoes will leave readers forever altered.

A beautiful collection of seven short stories and a novella themed around women's voices from the author of Mend the Living and Painting Time

A beautiful collection of seven short stories and a novella themed around women's voices from the author of Mend the Living and Painting Time

** SELECTED BY THE NEW YORK TIMES AS 1 OF THE 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR ** ** INCLUDED ON THE NEW YORKER'S BEST BOOKS OF 2023 ** "At The New York Times Book Review, I think it's fair to say we were dazzled by the way the author creates . . . a miniature masterpiece of narrative tension and compression" - Emily Eakin, "The Book Review" podcast In this gripping tale, a Russian conscript and a French woman cross paths on the Trans-Siberian railroad, each fleeing to the east for their own reasons Perfect for fans of Maggie Shipstead's Great Circle and The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles Eastbound is both an adventure story and a duet of two vibrant inner worlds. In mysterious, winding sentences gorgeously translated by Jessica Moore, De Kerangal gives us the story of two unlikely souls entwined in a quest for freedom with a striking sense of tenderness, sharply contrasting the brutality of the surrounding world. Racing toward Vladivostok, we meet the young Aliocha, packed onto a Trans-Siberian train with other Russian conscripts. Soon after boarding, he decides to desert and over a midnight smoke in a dark corridor of the train, he encounters an older French woman, H l ne, for whom he feels an uncanny trust. A complicity quickly grows between the two when he manages to urgently ask--through a pantomime and basic Russian that H l ne must decipher--for her help to hide him. They hurry from the filth of his third-class carriage to H l ne's first-class sleeping car. Aliocha now a hunted deserter and H l ne his accomplice with her own inner landscape of recent memories to contend with.

Eastbound maps the fast-paced story of two fugitives on the Trans-Siberian Railway, where a desperate Russian conscript hopes a chance encounter with an older French woman will offer him a line of flight.; Published in France one year after Kerangal's award-winning novel Birth of a Bridge (2010), Eastbound breathes new life into the Russian literary archetype of the rebel soldier and revives the reality of disempowerment of the Soldiers' Mothers of Saint Petersburg protest. Inspired by Kerangal's observations on the ground, the novella developed from a France Culture radio commission for a short story, written whilst travelling on the Trans-Siberian from Novossibirsk to Vladivostok, as part of the French Ministry of Culture's programme of French-Russian events in 2010.

Named a most anticipated book of 2021 by The Guardian and The MillionsAn aesthetic and existential coming-of-age novel exploring the apprenticeship of a young female painter. In Maylis de Kerangal's Painting Time, we are introduced to the burgeoning young artist Paula Karst, who is enrolled at the famous Institut de Peinture in Brussels. Unlike the friends she makes at school, Paula strives to understand the specifics of what she's painting--replicating a wood's essence or a marble's wear requires method, technique, and talent, she finds, but also something else: craftsmanship. She resolutely chooses the painstaking demands of craft over the abstraction of high art. With the attention of a documentary filmmaker, de Kerangal follows Paula's career, which is punctuated by brushstrokes, hard work, sleepless nights, sore muscles, and long, festive evenings. An enchanted and atmospheric coming-of-age novel, Painting Time is an intimate and unsparing exploration of craft, inspiration, and the contours of the contemporary art world. As she did in her acclaimed novels The Heart and The Cook, de Kerangal unravels a tightly wound professional world to reveal the beauty within.

"Maylis de Kerangal conjures the same painterly realism her characters hope to achieve in paint" London Magazine"Evocative and exhilerating" Booklist"Maylis de Kerangal is mining a rich and individual seam" TImes Literary SupplementBehind the ornate doors of the Institut de Peinture in Brussels, Kate, Jonas and Paula begin their apprenticeship in decorative painting, the art of visual deception. An intense year of study will cement a friendship that lasts long after their formal education ends. Paula's initiation into trompe l'oeil will take her back through time and place as she strives for perfection. From her work on the film sets of Cinecittà to the prehistoric caves of Lascaux, her experiences will transcend artistic endeavour and gradually reveal something of her own inner world and the secret, unreachable desires of her heart.This is a coming-of-age novel like no other: an atmospheric and highly aesthetic portrayal of love, art and craftsmanship from the prize-winning author of Birth of a Bridge and Mend the Living.Translated from the French by Jessica Moore

Kuvitteellisessa Cocan kaupungissa Kaliforniassa rakennetaan suurta siltaa. Työmaalla kuhisee monien maiden ja mantereiden kansalaisia, miehiä ja naisia: insinöörejä, suunnittelijoita, koneenkäyttäjiä, kaapeliasentajia. Työmaa on kuin massiivinen sulatusuuni, Amerikka pienoiskoossa.Suuren mittakaavan romaani on kirjoitettu amerikkalaisten seikkailuelokuvien tyyliin. Se seuraa kymmeniä päähenkilöitään myyttisen Kalifornian kultamailla kesyttämässä luontoa, taivuttamassa sitä ihmisen tahtoon. Hankaluuksitta ei jättihanke etene. Sitä uhkaavat vuorollaan työläisten lakot, ympäristökiistat, onnettomuudet, sabotaasi, jopa rakkausjutut.Sillan synty tekee vaikutuksen rikkaalla ja maalailevalla kielellään ja ylitsepursuavalla sanavarastollaan. Sillanrakennusinsinöörienteräksestä ja lasista syntyy runoutta. De Kerangal liikkuu eri rekistereissä vaivatta, keksii omia sanoja, nopeuttaa ja hidastaa kerrontaa mielensä mukaan - luo maailmoja kielellä.

A breathtaking mountain adventure, in which a boy finds his inner strength, from the author of the critically-acclaimed, award-winning novel The Heart Paul is ten years old and lives with his aunt and uncle. Bruce, an old family friend, suddenly reappears after three years of silence, eager to keep a promise he made to Paul to take him on a three-day mountain trek. Paul longs for Bruce’s friendship and wants badly to prove himself. But he is also timid and unsure, and Bruce—who is better at doing than explaining—doesn’t make it any easier. A dramatic event gives Paul the chance to find his inner strength, and to show himself and everyone else what he is capable of. This uniquely illustrated coming-of-age story for teens can help create thought-provoking discussion about: Finding independence, resiliency, and self-confidence The importance of guidance and mentorship from trusted adults An Aldana Libros Book, Greystone Kids

"One of contemporary fiction's most gifted sentence builders" Beejay Silcox, GuardianBehind the ornate doors of 30, rue du Métal in Brussels, twenty students begin their apprenticeship in the art of decorative painting - that art of tricksters and counterfeiters, where each knot in a plank of wood hides a secret and every vein in a slab of marble tells a story.Among these students are Kate, Jonas and Paula Karst. Together, during a relentless year of study, they will learn the techniques of reproducing materials in paint, and the intensity of their experience - the long hours in the studio, the late nights, the conversations, arguments, parties, romances - will cement a friendship that lasts long after their formal studies end.For Paula, her initiation into the art of trompe l'œil will take her back through time, from her own childhood memories, to the ancient formations of the materials whose depiction she strives to master. And from the institute in Brussels where her studies begin, to her work on the film sets of Cinecittà, and finally the prehistoric caves of Lascaux, her experiences will transcend art, gradually revealing something of her own inner world, and the secret, unreachable desires of her heart.A coming-of-age novel like no other: an atmospheric and highly aesthetic portrayal of love, art and craftsmanship from the acclaimed author of Birth of a Bridge and Mend the Living.Translated from the French by Jessica Moore