The Art of Losing

With its panoramic vision and generous spirit, The Art of Losing finds shoots of hope amid the stony landscapes of the past. * Spectator *
Remarkable … Because it deals with immigration, nationalism and Islam, it speaks urgently to our time … a novel about people that never loses its sense of humanity. * Sunday Times, ‘Translated Book of the Month’ *
Visceral … An incredible [book] … that requires rapt attention. It is a novel that scales the walls of history and excavates lessons with curiosity and anger. * Observer *
This pacy, complex piece of historical fiction (which was nominated for France’s most prestigious literary award, the Prix Goncourt) explores the tangled reality of identity. * New Statesman *
If you think of historical fiction as a way of translating the past, does your perspective change when that fiction has been translated from another language? … This added dimension can make a book even richer, even more provocative. And none demonstrates that better than … The Art of Losing. * New York Times Book Review *
Ms. Zeniter’s extraordinary achievement is to transform a complicated conflict into a compelling family chronicle, rich in visual detail and lustrous in language. * Wall Street Journal *
An exceptional novel, a masterful meditation on the negative space of history. With surgical control and deep emotional precision, Alice Zeniter tells the story of a family at once severed from and forever tethered to its past. – Omar El Akkad, author of American War
A deeply human text about the ghosts of identity and decolonization. * Vanity Fair *
A captivating exploration of the unspoken stories of the Algerian war. * Le Monde *
A powerful family saga … [Zeniter] shows how history is passed down from generation to generation, in stories pockmarked by what’s left unsaid. * L’Obs *
Zeniter captures all manner of emotions one might imagine, and others that would not occur to those of us who have never had to endure such trauma. – Tim House * Financial Times *

Alice Zeniter is a French novelist, translator, scriptwriter and director. Her novel Take This Man was published in English in 2011. Zeniter has won many awards for her work in France, including the Prix Littéraire de la Porte Dorée, the Prix Renaudot des Lycéens and the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens, which was awarded to The Art of Losing. She lives in Britanny, France.

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