Hocus Bogus
Book description
By the early 1970s, Romain Gary had established himself as one of France's most popular and prolific novelists, journalists, and memoirists. Feeling that he had been typecast as "Romain Gary," however, he wrote his next novel under the pseudonym Emile Ajar. His second novel written as Ajar, Life Before Us,…
Why read it?
1 author picked Hocus Bogus as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Irresistible! Romain Gary had hoodwinked the literary world by publishing prize-winning successful novels under the false identity of Émile Ajar and was paranoid about being found out. So he wrote a confession by “Émile Ajar” to show that he hated Romain Gary (“Uncle Bogey” in this novel) and was borderline crazy as well. Written in contorted, loopy, and killingly funny bad French, it was a challenge to get into English—but I just loved doing it! What’s more, the deception worked: nobody dared accuse Gary of being Ajar ever again. An unclassifiable masterpiece of simulated mental breakdown; a language game of…
From David's list on funniest stories ever translated into English.
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