The Art of Losing

By Alice Zeniter, Frank Wynne (translator),

Book cover of The Art of Losing

Book description

Winner of the International Dublin Literary Award

'Remarkable . . . a novel about people that never loses its sense of humanity' - The Sunday Times

'Zeniter's extraordinary achievement is to transform a complicated conflict into a compelling family chronicle.' - The Wall Street Journal

Naima has always known that…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Art of Losing as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

My partner recommended this book, only recently translated into English, about a Parisian gallery worker, Naïma, who unravels her family's tangled history between rural Algeria and France. In this book, Zeniter explores the complex aftershocks of colonization and how they affect and inform subsequent generations of migrants.

Naïma’s family story in France begins when her grandfather, Ali, flees North Africa after the Algerian war for independence. Coming from a mountain village, Ali finds the decrepit French apartment blocks bewildering and unwelcoming. The final section of Zeniter’s book is devoted to Naïma’s return to Algeria, where she attempts to weave together…

From Ali's list on cities and exile.

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At What Cost, Silence? By Karen Lynne Klink,

Secrets, misunderstandings, and a plethora of family conflicts abound in this historical novel set along the Brazos River in antebellum Washington County, East Texas.

It is a compelling story of two neighboring plantation families and a few of the enslaved people who serve them. These two plantations are a microcosm…

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