'One of the funniest, most riotously inventive and enjoyable novels you’ll read this year' - Observer

‘The most outrageously entertaining novel of the year… A joy’ - Philip Hensher

Roland Barthes is knocked down in a Paris street by a laundry van. It’s February 1980 and he has just come from lunch with Francois Mitterrand, a slippery politician locked in a battle for the Presidency. Barthes dies soon afterwards. History tells us it was an accident.

But what if it were an assassination? What if Barthes was carrying a document of unbelievable, global importance? A document explaining the seventh function of language – an idea so powerful it gives whoever masters it the ability to convince anyone, in any situation, to do anything.

Police Captain Jacques Bayard and his reluctant accomplice Simon Herzog set off on a chase that takes them from the corridors of power and academia to backstreet saunas and midnight rendezvous. What they discover is a worldwide conspiracy involving the President, murderous Bulgarians and a secret international debating society.

In the world of intellectuals and politicians, everyone is a suspect. Who can you trust when the idea of truth itself is at stake?

About the Authors

Laurent Binet lives and works in France. His first novel, HHhH, was an international bestseller which won the prestigious Prix Goncourt du premier roman, among other prizes. The 7th Function of Language won the Prix de la FNAC and Prix Interalli�. Civilisations is a bestseller that has won the Grand Prix de l'Acad�mie fran�aise.

Sam Taylor is an award-winning literary translator and novelist. He has translated more than 60 books from French including Laurent Binet's HHhH and Leila Slimani's Lullaby.

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