The Explosion of the Radiator Hose – A Novel (French Literature) - Softcover

Rolin, Jean; Lalaurie, Louise Rogers

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1564786323 ISBN 13: 9781564786326

Publisher: Columbia University Press, 2011

Synopsis

In this nominally true story of an epic, transcontinental road trip, Jean Rolin travels to Africa from darkest France, accompanying a battered Audi to its new life as a taxi to be operated by the family of a Congolese security guard. The ghost of Joseph Conrad haunts Rolin's journey, as do memories of his expatriate youth in Kinshasa in the early 1960s--but no less present are W. G. Sebald and Marcel Proust, who are the guiding lights for Rolin's sensual and digressive attack upon history: his own as well as the world's. By turns comic, lyrical, gruesome, and humane, "The Explosion of the Radiator Hose" is a one-of-a-kind travelogue, and no less an exploration of what it means to be human in a life of perpetual exile and migration.

About this title

About the Author

Jean Rolin is a French writer and journalist, the winner of the 1988 Albert Londres Prize for journalism, and the 1996 Prix Medicis for his novel L'organisation. As a student, he was closely involved-along with his older brother Olivier (the author of "Hotel Crystal")-in the May '68 uprising. He is the author of essays, novels, and short stories. In 2006, his book "L'Homme qui a vu l'ours" won the Prix Ptolemee.

Edition details

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1564786323
• ISBN 13: 9781564786326
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 168