Philippe Claudel

1. Philippe , Claudel

Crépuscule

1. Philippe , Claudel

German Fantasia

A deserting soldier treks through the torn-up countryside and abandoned villages, trying to distance himself from the atrocities of war.An elderly man sits beneath lime trees, remembering his first sexual encounter one summer night with a female stranger who whispered another man's name.A young woman takes up a job in a care home, spending monotonous days scrubbing floors and yearning to dance at the local nightclub.The artist Franz Marc lives on in an imagined life as a patient at an asylum, before falling victim to Hitler's policy of Gnadentod.Finally, a young Jewish girl, the life she once knew destroyed, holds her memories close as she finds refuge in wreckage of her homeland.And throughout there is the shadowy presence of Viktor - one man or many? A looming figure in Germany's own reckoning with its past.Through these five interconnected stories, Philippe Claudel reflects on Germany's complex history and the experiences of its people, dismantling the idea of "a nation" or "a people" and exploring the malleability of memory.

1. Philippe , Claudel

Dog Island

From the author of Grey Souls and Brodeck's Report: a chilling island fable of murder, exploitation and complicity"A parable about modern migration that is also the kind of detective story Mikhail Bulgakov might have written: visionary and darkly humourous" Lucy Hughes-Hallet, New Statesman BOOKS OF THE YEAR"A timely and elegant examination of the migrant situation in the Mediterranean from the point of view of a remote, volcanic island" The New European BOOKS OF THE YEARThe Dog Islands are a small, isolated cluster of islands in the Mediterranean - so called because together, when viewed from above, they form the shape of a dog, twisting and baring its teeth against a brilliant blue sea. One of the only inhabited islands (the one that takes the place of one of the dog's teeth) is dominated by a gently smoking volcano, fringed by black volcanic beaches and under the iron rule of the heads of community who are loath to let any outside influence disrupt the quiet way of life on the island.Then one morning, an old woman comes across three bodies that have washed up with the tide: three young black men, who have apparently drowned in their attempt to cross the sea. The initial reaction of the island community is that this tragedy must be covered up, lest any association with the drownings damages the island's tourism industry . . .But the island's deliberate isolation from the realities of the world cannot last for long, and when a visiting detective arrives on the island and starts asking awkward questions, it becomes clear that the deaths of these three men indicate something far more sinister and deeply rotten lying at the heart of this godforsaken fragment of sea-bound land.Translated from the French by Euan CameronEUAN CAMERON is a literary translator from the French and a former publisher. His previous translations include works by Patrick Modiano, Didier Decoin and Paul Morand, as well as biographies of Marcel Proust and Irène Némirovsky. His debut novel, Madeleine, was published in 2019.With the support of the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union

1. Philippe , Claudel

The Investigation

The Investigator is despatched to a provincial town to find out the truth behind a disturbing spate of suicides amongst employees of The Firm. But from the moment he steps off the train, he finds himself in a world that is alien, unrecognisable, and diabolically complex. From the hostile weather and the fickle hospitality at Hotel Hope to the town's bewildering inhabitants, everything seems to be against him to the point where he wonders whether he is trapped in a recurring nightmare, or has passed into the realm of death itself. Cold, hungry and humiliated, and always one step behind, he nevertheless remains determined to find the only man he can hold to account - The Firm's legendary but elusive founder. The Investigation is an enthralling fable in which our own world is turned on its head, and where the only answers are more questions. Philippe Claudel - author of Brodeck's Report and Monsieur Linh and His Child - is one of Europe's most daring and versatile novelists.

1. Philippe , Claudel

L'Archipel du Chien

1. Philippe , Claudel

Bajo El Arbol de Los Toraya

En las montañas de la isla indonesia de Célebes vive el pueblo de los toraya, conocido por unos ritos funerarios que se prolongan durante varios días y congregan a toda la comunidad. Cuando un bebé muere, por ejemplo, su cuerpo se deposita en el interior del tronco de un árbol centenario que, poco a poco, lo envuelve y se nutre de él. Así, al crecer, el árbol conduce a los niños hacia el cielo, un símbolo escultórico mediante el cual se mantienen próximos los seres amados que ya no están.El narrador de esta historia, un cineasta profundamente afectado por el fallecimiento de Eugène, su mejor amigo y confidente, descubre en los árboles de los toraya la síntesis del misterio de la vida y la muerte, como una llave maestra capaz de abrir ese recinto hermético en el que las personas escondemos las vivencias más íntimas. Asomándose al abismo de la pérdida, el narrador se encuentra, paradójicamente, cara a cara con la intensidad del amor, ese enigma insondable que nos liga al futuro mientras el presente desgarra nuestro ser.Reconocida y celebrada en sus obras más emblemáticas ?Almas grises, La nieta del señor Linh y El informe de Brodeck?, la prosa depurada, poética y luminosa de Philippe Claudel brilla aún más en este texto intimista, de gran hondura filosófica, que es a la vez un homenaje a la amistad y una oda a la fragilidad de la vida. Un viaje interior lleno de esperanza que nos invita a valorar la belleza que encierra nuestra efímera existencia.