W, or the Memory of Childhood (Verba Mundi (Paperback))

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.

Georges Perec was a French essayist, novelist, memoirist, and filmmaker. Born in Paris in 1936, the child of Polish Jews, his father died as soldier in the Second World War and his mother was killed in the Holocaust. Much of his work dealt with themes of identity, loss, absence―including his most celebrated work, Life A User’s Manual.
In addition to being honored by the Prix Renaudot (1965), the Prix Jean Vigo (1974), the Prix Médicis (1978), and the French postal service (2002), both an asteroid and a street in Paris were named in his honor―as well as a Google Doodle on his 80th birthday.

David Bellos won the first Man Booker International Prize for his translations of the Albanian author, Ismail Kadare, and holds the rank of Officier in the Ordre national des Arts et des Lettres and an honorary membership in The International Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters.