The Art of Losing

With its panoramic vision and generous spirit, The Art of Losing finds shoots of hope amid the stony landscapes of the past. * Spectator * 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. * Sunday Times, 'Translated Book of the Month' * 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. * Observer * 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. * New Statesman * 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. * New York Times Book Review * Ms. Zeniter’s extraordinary achievement is to transform a complicated conflict into a compelling family chronicle, rich in visual detail and lustrous in language. * Wall Street Journal * 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. -- Omar El Akkad, author of <i>American War</i> A deeply human text about the ghosts of identity and decolonization. * Vanity Fair * A captivating exploration of the unspoken stories of the Algerian war. * Le Monde * A powerful family saga . . . [Zeniter] shows how history is passed down from generation to generation, in stories pockmarked by what’s left unsaid. * L’Obs * 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. -- Tim House<i> </i> * Financial Times *