“Koljós” by Emmanuel Carrère. Anagrama, 448 pages, $50,900.
The news of an upcoming visit by Emmanuel Carrère to Argentina revived interest in his new novel, released in April in Argentina. In recent years, there has been a great consensus (something difficult to achieve in the literary world) about the quality of the work of this 68-year-old French writer, author of texts that are already classics: “The Adversary,” “Of the Lives of Others,” “Limonov” and others.
“Koljós”, perhaps his most personal book, tells the story of his family, especially that of his mother, Hélène Carrère d’Encausse. Hélène was a figure in the world of French politics and culture, a prominent historian and the first female secretary of the Academy. Born into a Russian family, Emmanuel’s grandmother came from the oldest aristocracy in Europe. His grandfather, on the other hand, was a descendant of Georgian bourgeois. Both were part of the great exodus of the Russian nobility and wealthy class after the revolution and had to face the harshest living conditions in France.
Emmanuel’s father, Louis Carrère d’Encausse, was a typical Frenchman. A humble man who lived fascinated by the brilliance of his wife: her family tree, her intelligence and her professional success. It is his archival work on Hélène’s family that allowed the writer to thoroughly explore her maternal history. A biography that is also the symbol of a century crossed by displacements, wars, revolutions and extermination. “The Russian Novel,” Carrère’s most disruptive book, distanced him from his mother by revealing his grandfather’s collaborationist past. Here he returns to this ghost, an absence that his mother suffered forever.
Over more than 400 pages, the narrative progresses in extreme detail following the chronology of family life. The final point is the death of his parents, in 2023, a few months away. Carrère knows how to nuance this long journey (at the moment, difficult to follow) with twists and turns from the past to the present, happy anecdotes and intimate confessions. The ending (we are not going to tell it) is absolutely beautiful.
“Kolkhoz” were collective agricultural production farms in the Soviet world. For the Carrères, on the other hand, the word named the custom of sleeping together in the mother’s bed. A woman who marked him, for better and for worse, and was the most important presence in his life. This book is a loving tribute to his story.
““The newspaper of democracy” by Javier Cercas. Random House, 144 pages, $29,999.
Javier Cercas’s latest book celebrates the 50th anniversary of the birth of the newspaper El País, perhaps the most important of Spanish-language newspapers. The director of the publication, Jan Martínez Ahrens, was the one who suggested Cercas write this short text. The newspaper was born in 1976, shortly after the dictatorship ended, and had its test with the attempted coup d’état of 1981. Accused of always playing into the hands of the left, El País created a new way of doing journalism in times of democracy. With the same passion as always, Cercas more than meets its objective and draws a complete picture of the political and cultural contribution of the great Iberian newspaper.
The desert of ourselves by Éric Sadin. Black Box, 280 pages, $37,000.
The Frenchman Éric Sadin is one of the most influential philosophers of today. The Caja Negra label has published most of his work in Spanish. A thinker who tirelessly denounces the advance of technology on human creativity and who now looks closely at the effects of AI and the useless attempts to control it.
The contempt of François Dubet. 21st century, 136 pages, $21,900.
A previous book by Dubet, “The Time of Sad Passions,” made us reflect on the hate speech that fuels the ultra-right. Here, in a similar way, the sociologist analyzes the links between contempt and the sense of injustice. A feeling that, in their own way, all members of modern societies experience.
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Source: Yenny and El Ateneo Bookstores.
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