book review

I’ve said before that if knowing the plot of a novel in advance ruins it for you, there’s probably something wrong with the book.  The best have a lot more going for them than just a story. Philippe Claudel’s Monsieur Linh And His Child falls into that category (despite a glaring weakness), so I feel justified in spoiling it for you.

La Petite Fille de Monsieur Linh, as it is is known in the original French, has one tremendous asset: the description of a friendship between two elderly men.Monsieur Linh is a refugee, presumably in France, possibly from Vietnam, although Claudel doesn’t expressly tell us that.

[Read more…] about Monsieur Linh And His Child (La Petite Fille de Monsieur Linh) by Philippe Claudel

Small Country or Petit Pays by Gael Faye has one thing that makes it stand out: authenticity. And that’s good enough for me.

The author is a singer and a rapper but don’t let that put you off. This is his first and so far only novel. Faye said the book is not autobiographical, yet the narrator and main character is called Gaby, who has a French father and Rwandan mother (as did Faye). He is growing up in the 1990s in Burundi at the time of the Rwandan genocide (as did Faye), and he eventually ends up a refugee in France (you guessed it).

All of which matters not at all, except when it comes to writing his next book, if he ever does.

[Read more…] about Small Country or Petit Pays by Gaël Faye