W, or the Memory of Childhood (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781567921588)

From the author of Life A User's Manual comes an equally mind-bending novel: an interpretive vision of the Holocaust and a dystopian world.

W or The Memory of Childhood is a narrative that reflects a great writer's effort to come to terms with his childhood during the Nazi occupation of France.

Perec tells two parallel stories. The first is autobiographical, describing his wartime boyhood. The second tale, denser, more disturbing, more horrifying, is the allegorical story of W, a mythical island off Tierra del Fuego governed by the thrall of the Olympic "ideal," where losers are tortured and winners held in temporary idolatry. As the reader soon discovers, W is a place where "it is more important to be lucky than to be deserving," and "you have to fight to live...no recourse, no mercy, no salvation, not even any hope that time will sort things out."

Perec's memory of the Holocaust and vision about its meaning has resulted in an astonishing achievement that stands with the best of his work.

Author: Georges Perec
ISBN-10: 1567921582
ISBN-13: 9781567921588
Publisher: Verba Mundi
Language: English
Published: 07/01/2010
Pages: 164
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.50w x 0.60d