Hotel Crystal

At some Parisian lost-and-found, a mysterious manuscript scribbled onto stray bits of hotel stationary and postcards and stuffed into an abandoned briefcase comes into the hands of an “editor,” who claims to faithfully transcribe and assemble the random texts. On the face of it, these consist of fastidious descriptions of a series of hotel rooms in cities around the globe, but their world-weary writer, a certain “Olivier Rolin,” is also involved in a number of highly improbable international networks, populated by unsavory thugs and Mata Haris in distress. Author Olivier Rolin has dipped into his extensive travel notebooks to create this highly inventive novel that spoofs, among others, the decaying international espionage scene, the literary author publicity tour, and official French culture, all against a backdrop of the queasy alienation secreted by standard-issue hotel rooms across the globe.

Olivier Rolin is one of France's most distinguished novelists. His "Port-Sudan" won the Prix Femina, and "Tigre en Papier" was short-listed for the 2003 Goncourt Prize. This is the first translation of his work into English. William Cloonan is the Richard Chapple Professor of Modern Languages at Florida State University. He is the author of "The Writing of War: French and German Fiction and World War II,"

Jane Kuntz has translated Everyday Life and The Power of Flies by Lydie Salvayre, Hotel Crystal by Olivier Rolin, Pigeon Post by Dumitru Tsepeneag, and Hoppla! 1 2 3 and Making a Novel by Gerard Gavarry, all of which are available from Dalkey Archive Press.