A filthy and exhausted soldier emerges from the Mediterranean wilderness―he is escaping from an unspecified war, trying to flee incessant violence and find refuge in solitude. Meanwhile, on September 11, 2001, aboard a small cruise ship, a scientific conference takes place to pay tribute to renowned East German mathematician Paul Heudeber, a committed communist and anti-fascist, and a survivor of the camps at Buchenwald.The tension grows between these two narrative threads, and―pulled together in Mathias �nard’s enchanting, brilliant, erudite prose―time itself seems to become tightly interwoven, drawn together by the immense stakes of love and politics, loyalty and belief, hope and survival.

About the Authors

Mathias �nard is the author of Compass (winner of the Prix Goncourt, the Leipzig Prize, and the Premio von Rezzori, and shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize); The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers' Guild; Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants; Zone; and Street of Thieves.

A Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Charlotte Mandell has translated over fifty books from the French, including works by Flaubert, Proust, and Genet. In 2001 she received a translation prize from the Modern Language Association for her translation of Faux Pas by Maurice Blanchot, in 2018 she won the National Translation Award in Prose for her translation of Compass by Mathias �nard, in 2024 she received the Thornton Wilder Translation Prize from the Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2026 she received the French American Foundation Translation Prize for her translation of The Deserters by Mathias �nard. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband, the poet Robert Kelly.

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