The Incorrigible Optimists Club - Softcover

Guenassia, Jean-Michel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1848875428 ISBN 13: 9781848875425

Publisher: Atlantic Books, 2015

Synopsis

Paris, 1959. As dusk settles over the immigrant quarter, 12-year-old Michel Marini - amateur photographer and compulsive reader - is drawn to the hum of the local bistro. From his usual position at the football table, he has a vantage point on a grown-up world - of rock 'n' roll and of the Algerian War. But as the sun sinks and the plastic players spin, Michel's concentration is not on the game, but on the huddle of men gathered in the shadows of a back room...

Past the bar, behind a partly drawn curtain, a group of eastern European men gather, where under a cirrus of smoke and over the squares of chess boards, they tell of their lives before France - of lovers and wives, children and ambitions, all exiled behind the Iron Curtain. Listening to this band of survivors and raconteurs, Michel is introduced to a world beyond the boundaries of his childhood experience, a world of men made formidable in the face of history, ideas and politics: the world of the Incorrigible Optimists Club.

About this title

Review:

Extraordinary... The Incorrigible Optimists Club feels as if you are witnessing the birth of a true, great novelist, Lire

A debut, a door-stopper, a masterpiece, La Parisienne

Powerful, deep, sad and joyful... A debut novel of staggering mastery , L'Express

Masterful... By turns comical, sad and genuine. It captured our hearts., L'Humanite

A magnificent generational portrait... A novel that occasionally makes you cry and often makes you laugh

, Le Figaro

From the Author:

Jean-Michel Guenassia was born in Algeria, 1950. He is a prolific screenwriter and he lives in France.

About this edition

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1848875428
• ISBN 13: 9781848875425
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 640