Humbert Humbert - scholar, aesthete and romantic - has fallen completely and utterly in love with Lolita Haze, his landlady's gum-snapping, silky skinned twelve-year-old daughter. Reluctantly agreeing to marry Mrs Haze just to be close to Lolita, Humbert suffers greatly in the pursuit of romance; but when Lo herself starts looking for attention elsewhere, he will carry her off on a desperate cross-country misadventure, all in the name of Love. Hilarious, flamboyant, heart-breaking and full of ingenious word play, Lolita is an immaculate, unforgettable masterpiece of obsession, delusion and lust.
TELEGRAPH BOOKS OF THE YEAR and OBSERVER BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014br>br>Limonov is not a fictional character, but he could have been. He''s lived a hundred lives. He was a hoodlum in Ukraine, an idol of the Soviet underground, punk-poet and valet to a billionaire in Manhattan, fashion writer in Paris, lost soldier in the Balkans, and now, in the chaos after the fall of communism a charismatic party leader of a gang of political desperados. Limonov sees himself as a hero, but he is also a bastard. Carrere suspends judgment. Carrere decided to write about Limonov because he thought "that his life, romantic and reckless, tells us something, not just about Limonov or Russia, but the story of all of us after the end of World War II.">
Originally written in 1952 but not published till 1985, Queer is an enigma - both an unflinching autobiographical self-portrait and a coruscatingly political novel, Burroughs' only realist love story and a montage of comic-grotesque fantasies that paved the way for his masterpiece, Naked Lunch. Set in Mexico City during the early fifties, Queer follows William Lee's hopeless pursuit of desire from bar to bar in the American expatriate scene. As Lee breaks down, the trademark Burroughsian voice emerges; a maniacal mix of self-lacerating humor and the Ugly American at his ugliest. A haunting tale of possession and exorcism, Queer is also a novel with a history of secrets, as this new edition reveals.
Those who inhabit Last Exit to Brooklyn are unforgettable: Harry, the strike leader, who during his weeks of power discovers something of his true nature; Tralala, who rejects the only love she is offered and sinks swiftly to the lowest level of prostitution; Georgette, the 'hip queer' with pathetic aspirations to culture; Abraham, the 'cool ass' black stud, with his girls, his 'bigass' Cadillac, and his undernourished family; the debris of American civilisation, for whom the author ultimately makes us feel a profound compassion. Last Exit to Brooklyn was found obscene at the Old Bailey in November 1967, a decision which was reversed by a historic Appeal Court judgement in July 1968. Now this 'honest and terrible book', as Anthony Burgess describes it in his Introduction to this new edition, can take its rightful place as one of the major books of our time.
Shanghai, 1941. Une vieille famille crispée autour de sa douairière semble avoir pour seule ambition d'arrêter le temps. Quand Madame Hsü y introduit un riche héritier aux moeurs décadentes pour épouser la Septième Demoiselle, c'est bien davantage sa soeur, Pai Lio-su, la jeune et belle divorcée retournée vivre dans sa famille, qui intéresse Fan Liu-yuan. Devant l'hostilité montante du clan, Pai Lio-su quitte Shanghai pour Hongkong, sans savoir que Fan Liu-yuan l'y attend... Mais le séducteur cherche autre chose en Lio-su qu'une simple aventure. Et son jeu devient partie intégrante de l'amour qu'il lui porte, tandis que celle-ci, furieusement amoureuse, se refuse à lui avec défiance, orgueil, voire insolence. Mais la guerre enflamme Hongkong, les jetant dans l'oeil d'un cyclone qui les dépouille de tout vernis. Et c'est tout le décor dramatique et précieux de leur vie qui tombe avec Hongkong.
Il y a dans Love in a Fallen City un accent fitzgéraldien qui donne toute sa modernité à ce drame de la confrontation entre les moeurs traditionnelles chinoises et l'occidentalisation accélérée. L'art achevé d'Eileen Chang entretisse, avec un sens du détail et une émotion des couleurs tout picturaux, un jeu de métaphores aux délicatesses presque insaisissables de palimpsestes, portraits acerbes de personnages prisonniers de leur rôle social, tout cela dans la grâce saisie sur le vif du sentiment intime comme il naît, s'épanouit et s'étiole. Love in a Fallen City est ici suivi d'une nouvelle inédite Ah Hsiao est triste en automne.
"Dubliners" brings us moments from the lives of the men and women who inhabit James Joyce's Dublin, from truants, seducers, gossips and politicians to sentimental aunts, cunical patriots and struggling musicians. it is a gromy city full of cynicism and disappointment, yet with moments of rare epiphany that bring people and their hopes vividly to life.
First published in 1957, this book attempts to tackle the conflict between homosexual and heterosexual love. It tells of David, a young man awakening to his true homosexual nature, through a relationship with a barman named Giovanni, as he awaits his fiancee's arrival from Spain.
The town in this tale is Galloway, Massachusetts, birthplace of the five sons and three daughters of the Martin family in the early 1900s. The city is New York, the heaving melting pot which lures them all in search of futures and identity.
Abe Ravelstein est un brillant professeur de l'université de Chicago qui peut se targuer d'avoir formé tous les hommes qui comptent dans le monde politique.
Il a vécu sur un grand pied - largement au-dessus de ses moyens. Son ami Chick, le narrateur, lui a suggéré d'exposer sa philosophie politique dans un livre destiné au grand public. A sa propre surprise, Ravelstein s'exécute et devient millionnaire. Durant un séjour à Paris destiné à célébrer ce succès, il incite Chick à écrire un livre sur lui et tous deux échangent des pensées sur la mort, la philosophie et l'histoire, les amours et les amis, et des anecdotes du passé.
A leur retour dans le Midwest, Ravelstein succombe au sida tandis que Chick frôle la mort de peu. Le dernier roman de Saul Bellow est un voyage, tantôt sombre, tantôt férocement drôle, à travers l'amour et la mémoire ; c'est un hymne à l'amitié et à la vie.
En 1959 est publié à Paris Le Festin nu, qui révèle le talent scandaleux de William Burroughs. À l'origine, le manuscrit s'intitulait Interzone. Le Festin nu était le résultat d'un choix parmi le millier de pages d'un matériau que Burroughs répartit ensuite entre La Machine molle, Le ticket qui explosa et Nova Express. Restaient les 175 pages du manuscrit original qui n'ont été retrouvées qu'en 1984. Celles-ci nous permettent de reconstituer la genèse d'un des chefs-d'oeuvre de la littérature du XXe siècle. Ces fragments narratifs, ces lettres inachevées où l'écrivain américain dévoile à son ami Allen Ginsberg les progrès de son cheminement labyrinthique, ces « routines » où domine la figure grise et énigmatique de son double, William Lee, représentent la manifestation la plus pure de l'esprit de Burroughs et sa volonté de faire de l'écriture un moyen d'exploration transgressif des régions mentales encore inexplorées et dangereuses.
22 novembre 1963, assassinat du président kennedy. faute d'élucidation crédible, le mystère est resté total et le drame est entré dans la légende américaine. don delillo a puisé dans la vérité historique tous les éléments d'un fantastique roman policier - agents secrets, activistes de droite et de gauche, mafiosi, stripteaseuses, trafiquants de drogue, cia, fbi, kgb, fidel castro... et un coupable désigné nommé oswald, né sous le signe de la balance (libra, en anglais), meurtrier idéal assassiné à son tour devant les caméras du monde entier. de ce personnage mystérieux, delillo a fait l'antihéros d'un roman saisissant qui prouvera une fois de plus que l'intuition d'un grand romancier peut nous emmener plus loin sur le chemin de la vérité que bien des enquêtes. né à new york en 1936, écrivain reconnu dans le monde entier, don delillo a reçu les plus prestigieuses distinctions dont the national book award et the pen / faulkner award. il a également obtenu the jérusalem prize 1999 pour l'ensemble de son oeuvre ainsi que the howells medal of the american academy of arts and letters pour son roman, outre-monde. la plus grande partie de l'oeuvre de don delillo est publiée en france par actes sud.
An official tie-in edition of Philip K. Dick's dazzling speculative novel to accompany the new TV series, executive produced by Ridley Scott. Philip K. Dick's acclaimed cult novel gives us a horrifying glimpse of an alternative world - one where the Allies have lost the Second World War. In this nightmare dystopia the Nazis have taken over New York, the Japanese control California and the African continent is virtually wiped out. In a neutral buffer zone in America that divides the world's new rival superpowers, lives the author of an underground bestseller. His book offers a new vision of reality - an alternative theory of world history in which the Axis powers were defeated - giving hope to the disenchanted. Does 'reality' lie with him, or is his world just one among many others? 'The most brilliant science fiction mind on any planet' Rolling Stone 'Dick's finest book, and one of the very best science fiction novels ever published' Eric Brown
'Revolutionary ... An extravagant, finely written tale of ecological sabotage' The New York Times
Audacious, controversial and hilarious, The Monkey Wrench Gang is Edward Abbey's masterpiece - a big, boisterous and unforgettable novel about freedom and commitment that ignited the flames of environmental activism.
Throughout the vast American West, nature is being vicitimized by a Big Government / Big Business conspiracy of bridges, dams and concrete. But a motley gang of individuals has decided that enough is enough. A burnt-out veteran, a mad doctor and a polygamist join forces in a noble cause: to dismantle the machinery of progress through peaceful means - or otherwise.
'This is the work of a born storyteller at the height of his powers' Edmund White, Washington Post When Arthur Montana, world-renowned 'Emperor of Soul', is found dead in a London pub, his grief-stricken brother looks back over thirty years in the lives of their group of friends: from their childhood spent preaching and singing in Harlem churches, to their struggles with war and poverty, and their encounters with wealth, love and fame. Set against a vividly drawn background of the civil rights movement of the sixties, Baldwin's last novel is a monumental saga that ranges from New York to Paris, Korea to Africa to portray how profoundly racial politics can shape life, especially in the private business of love. 'Warm, melancholy . . . Hall Montana's voice is the conduit for Baldwin's most distinctive quality as a writer, his abundant tenderness' The New York Times
An allegorical guide to living, the protagonist, simply called "the prophet", delivers spiritual, yet practical, homilies on a variety of topics central to daily life: love, marriage and children; work and play; beauty, truth, joy and sorrow, death and many more.
Alex Leamas is tired. It's the 1960s, he's been out in the cold for years, spying in Berlin for his British masters, and has seen too many good agents murdered for their troubles. Now Control wants to bring him in at last - but only after one final assignment.
He must travel deep into the heart of Communist Germany and betray his country, a job that he will do with his usual cynical professionalism. But when George Smiley tries to help a young woman Leamas has befriended, Leamas's mission may prove to be the worst thing he could ever have done.
In le Carré's breakthrough work of 1963, the spy story is reborn as a gritty and terrible tale of men who are caught up in politics beyond their imagining.
Nightmarish and fiercely funny, William Burroughs' virtuoso, taboo-breaking masterpiece Naked Lunch follows Bill Lee through Interzone: a surreal, orgiastic wasteland of drugs, depravity, political plots, paranoia, sadistic medical experiments and endless, gnawing addiction. One of the most shocking novels ever written, Naked Lunch is a cultural landmark, now in a restored edition incorporating Burroughs' notes on the text, alternate drafts and outtakes from the original. 'A masterpiece. A cry from hell, a brutal, terrifying, and savagely funny book that swings between uncontrolled hallucination and fierce, exact satire' Newsweek ' Naked Lunch is a banquet you will never forget' J. G. Ballard
