The European bestseller (over 650,000 copies sold), The Incorrigible Optimists Club is a truly lovable novel of growing up and of idealism and disappointment
Set in the backstreets of Paris during the tumultuous sixties, The Incorrigible Optimists Club is a huge, exhilarating whirlwind of first love, radical art, colonial war, progressive politics, Chuck Berry and chain-smoking intellectuals.
The European bestseller (over 650,000 copies sold), The Incorrigible Optimists Club is a truly lovable novel of growing up and of idealism and disappointment
Set in the backstreets of Paris during the tumultuous sixties, The Incorrigible Optimists Club is a huge, exhilarating whirlwind of first love, radical art, colonial war, progressive politics, Chuck Berry and chain-smoking intellectuals.
Paris, 1959. As dusk settles over the immigrant quarter, 12-year-old Michel Marini - amateur photographer and compulsive reader - is drawn to the hum of the local bistro. From his usual position at the football table, he has a vantage point on a grown-up world - of rock 'n' roll and of the Algerian War. But as the sun sinks and the plastic players spin, Michel's concentration is not on the game, but on the huddle of men gathered in the shadows of a back room.
Past the bar, behind a partly drawn curtain, a group of eastern European men gather, where under a cirrus of smoke and over the squares of chess boards, they tell of their lives before France - of lovers and wives, children and ambitions, all exiled behind the Iron Curtain. Listening to this band of survivors and raconteurs, Michel is introduced to a world beyond the boundaries of his childhood experience, a world of men made formidable in the face of history, ideas and politics: the world of the Incorrigible Optimists Club.
“"Extraordinary . . . The Incorrigible Optimists Club feels as if you are witnessing the birth of a true, great novelist." -- Lire”
Extraordinary... The Incorrigible Optimists Club feels as if you are witnessing the birth of a true, great novelist Lire
A debut, a door-stopper, a masterpiece La Parisienne
Powerful, deep, sad and joyful... A debut novel of staggering mastery L'Express
Masterful... By turns comical, sad and genuine. It captured our hearts. L'Humanite
A magnificent generational portrait... A novel that occasionally makes you cry and often makes you laugh
Jean-Michel Guenassia was born in Algeria, 1950. He is a prolific screenwriter and he lives in France.
Set in the backstreets of Paris during the tumultuous sixties, The Incorrigible Optimists Club is a huge, exhilarating whirlwind of first love, radical art, colonial war, progressive politics, Chuck Berry and chain-smoking intellectuals. Paris, 1959. As dusk settles over the immigrant quarter, 12-year-old Michel Marini - amateur photographer and compulsive reader - is drawn to the hum of the local bistro. From his usual position at the football table, he has a vantage point on a grown-up world - of rock 'n' roll and of the Algerian War. But as the sun sinks and the plastic players spin, Michel's concentration is not on the game, but on the huddle of men gathered in the shadows of a back room. Past the bar, behind a partly drawn curtain, a group of eastern European men gather, where under a cirrus of smoke and over the squares of chess boards, they tell of their lives before France - of lovers and wives, children and ambitions, all exiled behind the Iron Curtain. Listening to this band of survivors and raconteurs, Michel is introduced to a world beyond the boundaries of his childhood experience, a world of men made formidable in the face of history, ideas and politics: the world of the Incorrigible Optimists Club.
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