The Explosion of the Radiator Hose: A Novel (French Literature)

Rolin, Jean

ISBN 10: 1564786323 / ISBN 13: 9781564786326

Published by Dalkey Archive Press, Champaign, 2011

About this Item

162pp. Extremities lightly rubbed. Trans. by Louise Rogers Lalaurie.

Seller Inventory # 254514

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Explosion of the Radiator Hose: A Novel (French Literature)
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press, Champaign
• Publication Date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1564786323
• ISBN 13: 9781564786326
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Very Good
• Dimensions: 14.02W x 20.24H x 1.22D centimeters 14.02 centimeters width by 20.24 centimeters height by 1.22 centimeters depth
• Weight: 1050 grams

About this title

Synopsis

In this nominally true story of an epic, transcontinental road trip, Jean Rolin travels to Africa from darkest France, accompanying a battered Audi to its new life as a taxi to be operated by the family of a Congolese security guard. The ghost of Joseph Conrad haunts Rolin's journey, as do memories of his expatriate youth in Kinshasa in the early 1960s--but no less present are W. G. Sebald and Marcel Proust, who are the guiding lights for Rolin's sensual and digressive attack upon history: his own as well as the world's. By turns comic, lyrical, gruesome, and humane, "The Explosion of the Radiator Hose" is a one-of-a-kind travelogue, and no less an exploration of what it means to be human in a life of perpetual exile and migration.

About the Author

Jean Rolin is a French writer and journalist, the winner of the 1988 Albert Londres Prize for journalism, and the 1996 Prix Medicis for his novel L'organisation. As a student, he was closely involved-along with his older brother Olivier (the author of "Hotel Crystal")-in the May '68 uprising. He is the author of essays, novels, and short stories. In 2006, his book "L'Homme qui a vu l'ours" won the Prix Ptolemee.