Hédi Kaddour

Marilyn Hacker

Hédi Kaddour's poetry arises from observation, from situations both ordinary and emblematic--of contemporary life, of human stubbornness, human invention, or human cruelty. With Treason, the award-winning poet and translator Marilyn Hacker presents an English-speaking audience with the first selected volume of his work. The poetries of several languages and literary traditions are lively and constant presences in the work of Hédi Kaddour, a Parisian as well as a Germanist and an Arabist. A walker's, a watcher's, and a listener's poems, his sonnet-shaped vignettes often include a line or two of dialogue that turns his observations and each poem itself into a kind of miniature theater piece. Favoring compact, classical models over long verse forms, Kaddour questions the structures of syntax and the limits of poetic form, combining elements of both international modernism and postmodernism with great sophistication. Capturing Kaddour's full range of diction, as well as his speed, momentum, and tone, Marilyn Hacker's translations brilliantly bring these poems alive.

Treason

London between the wars was a place of anxiety and uncertainty. After the postwar boom of the 1920s, the aftereffects of the stock market crash hit London and, even as the fortunes of the aristocracy went into decline, there was hunger and a rising tide of virulent fascism. It is in this setting that Max, a French journalist looking for his next story, and Lena, an American singer, find themselves in Hédi Kaddour's Little Grey Lies. Once lovers, but now friends, Max and Lena travel with Lena's new man, Thibault, and with Max's barely masked jealousy. Then they meet the striking Colonel Strether, the epitome of military decorum and bearing. An aging war hero, Strether seems to Max to be his best chance at a story, but as the two men talk, it seems Stether may not be who he says he is and the old soldier's past begins to trouble Max and Lena as they crash forward through memories and truths not theirs. As in his other work, internationally renowned poet and novelist Hédi Kaddour offers shifting time-frames and kaleidoscopic viewpoints in a mannered metafictional thriller that bears comparison to both Robert Coover and John Le Carré. Little Grey Lies is historical suspense at its best.

Little Grey Lies

notes et croquis de l'année 2008

Les pierres qui montent

David Foenkinos

Catherine Cusset

Daniel Picouly

Carole Martinez

Collectifs

François Garde

Joy Sorman

Gilles Leroy

Marie Nimier

Marie Modiano

Jean-Marie Laclavetine

Tonino Benacquista 

Il était une fois douze écrivains donnant de leurs nouvelles, d'ici, de là-bas ou bien d'ailleurs. Les douze destinations furent multiples et surprenantes, proches ou lointaines, émouvantes, dépaysantes assurément.

Ici et là, ou bien ailleurs. Nouvelles

Set in Europe between WWI and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Waltenberg is a story of love between German Hans and American singer, Lena, and of friendship between Hans and Max a French journalist. It is a riveting novel of espionage and a major work of literature. From the Hardcover edition.

Waltenberg

H�di Kaddour’s poetry arises from observation, from situations both ordinary and emblematic—of contemporary life, of human stubbornness, human invention, or human cruelty. With Treason, the award-winning poet and translator Marilyn Hacker presents an English-speaking audience with the first selected volume of his work. The poetries of several languages and literary traditions are lively and constant presences in the work of H�di Kaddour, a Parisian as well as a Germanist and an Arabist. A walker’s, a watcher’s, and a listener’s poems, his sonnet-shaped vignettes often include a line or two of dialogue that turns his observations and each poem itself into a kind of miniature theater piece. Favoring compact, classical models over long verse forms, Kaddour questions the structures of syntax and the limits of poetic form, combining elements of both international modernism and postmodernism with great sophistication. Capturing Kaddour’s full range of diction, as well as his speed, momentum, and tone, Marilyn Hacker’s translations brilliantly bring these poems alive.

Poems

1922 ist die Welt in der maghrebinischen Stadt Nahbès zu aller Zufriedenheit aufgeteilt. Bis ein amerikanisches Filmteam wie ein Meteor in dem Wüstenort einschlägt. Für einen Moment begegnen sich die Amerikanerin Kathryn und Raouf, der Sohn des Caïd, die junge Witwe Ranja, der altersmilde Kolonialist Ganthier und die kesse Pariser Journalistin Gabrielle in einer ebenso unbeschwerten wie abenteuerlichen Utopie – ehe das Rad der Geschichte einen jeden wieder an seinen Platz verweist. In seinem vielfach ausgezeichneten Roman erzählt Kaddour mit Witz und Weisheit, Poesie und Tempo von einer vergangenen, verblüffend vertrauten Epoche voller Aufbrüche und dramatischer Kollisionen. „Die Großmächtigen birgt in sich den Zündstoff einer ganzen Epoche. Ein großer Weltroman.“ Le Monde des Livres. „Kaddour versteht es, den Leser von der ersten Seite an zu fesseln: mit psychologischem Feingefühl genauso wie mit stilistischen Finessen und verdecktem ironischen Augenzwinkern.“ Christoph Vormweg, Deutschlandfunk.

Roman

Die Großmächtigen

The eagerly awaited English translation of Kaddour’s award-winning novel of clashing cultures during the French colonial years Gather together French colonialists, young nationalists eager for independence, and local Maghreb leaders in a small North African city of the 1920s. Bring a collection of brash American filmmakers and celebrities into the picture. Dangerous cultural collisions are the inevitable result in Hédi Kaddour’s best-selling novel of French colonial rule and its persisting legacy of human chaos and cultural tragedy. In this commanding novel, the author plumbs the contradictions of colonialism and the impact on individual lives. With insight, humor, and a profound sense of irony he introduces Les Prépondérants—“The Preponderants,” an unofficial group of peddlers of influence who operate at every level of colonial society. American “Hollywood” values, Islamic and secular politics, French manners—none of them escapes Kaddour’s skewering wit. Filled with rich irony and wonderful characters, this is a novel that grapples forcefully with colonial relations in the Arabic, North African, and French worlds, while also journeying into the simmering Europe and United States of the Roaring Twenties.

Hédi Kaddour

Books

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