Limonov - Penguin Modern Classics (Paperback)
  • Limonov - Penguin Modern Classics (Paperback)
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Limonov - Penguin Modern Classics (Paperback)

(author), (translator)
£9.99
Paperback 352 Pages
Published: 29/10/2015
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TELEGRAPH BOOKS OF THE YEAR and OBSERVER BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014

Limonov is not a fictional character, but he could have been. He's lived a hundred lives. He was a hoodlum in Ukraine, an idol of the Soviet underground, punk-poet and valet to a billionaire in Manhattan, fashion writer in Paris, lost soldier in the Balkans, and now, in the chaos after the fall of communism a charismatic party leader of a gang of political desperados. Limonov sees himself as a hero, but he is also a bastard. Carrere suspends judgment. Carrère decided to write about Limonov because he thought "that his life, romantic and reckless, tells us something, not just about Limonov or Russia, but the story of all of us after the end of World War II."

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN: 9781846148217
Number of pages: 352
Weight: 260 g
Dimensions: 198 x 130 x 20 mm


MEDIA REVIEWS

He's the best kind of writer, not just a bestseller but a man who is not afraid to leave the comfort zone of his desk, go out into the world, take risks, and get his shoes dirty ... His "non-fiction novel", Limonov, has two explicit modes - part adventure story, part cultural-historical analysis ... it is about Carrère's exploration of himself, his Russian heritage, and what it means to be a European after the second world war, especially since the end of the cold war - Robert McCrum, Observer

I loved Limonov by Emmanuel Carrère, which happens to be a book about a Russian guy. Like all of Carrère's work it's a sort of masterclass in creative writing - William Leith, Books of the Year, Evening Standard

Carrère covers a lot of ground with cool honesty and careful humanity - Sally Singer, Book of the Year, New York Times

A beguiling writer . . . Graceful and important - John Freeman, NPR

You might not have heard of [Limonov], and after you have read this you might wish you had not heard of him, but you will certainly have enjoyed reading about his life, thanks to the verve of Emmanuel Carrère's exhilarating narration. You will probably also understand considerably more about the country that produced such a narcissistic and controversial figure, whom the author finds alluring and repellent in equal measure . . . Carrère has seized on Limonov's projection of himself as a literary hero (or anti-hero) straight out of the pages of Dostoyevsky, Celine, or Henry Miller, and run with it - Rosamund Bartlett, Independent

This is an extraordinary, fantastic book about an extraordinary, fantastic life. It's billed as a novel, can be read as a novel and would be a good novel if Eduard Limonov had never existed. But he does . . . you will learn an awful lot about Russia now and in the days of the Soviets - Allan Massie, Scotsman

Russia, they say, cannot be understood with the mind alone, and neither can her looniest son to date, Edichka Limonov. It also takes a heart, a spleen, a liver and this beautiful book by France's greatest writer, Emmanuel Carrère. Get ready for the last real adventure of the 20th Century! - Gary Shteyngart, author of Little Failure

To paraphrase Calvino, Emmanuel Carrèrre's Limonov is a book about two things: Limonov, and everything else ... This virtuosically unclassifiable thing is somehow at once the liveliest of novels, the most illuminating of biographies, and the most consequential of philosophical inquiries - a loopy, hilarious, gut-punching quest after the shifting spirits of war, loyalty, discipline, pity, empathy, scorn, vitality, honor, ego, and, above all, the heroism of decency - Gideon Lewis-Kraus, author of A Sense of Direction

There are few great writers in France today, and Emmanuel Carrère is one of them - Paris Review

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