The Incorrigible Optimists Club by Euan Cameron, Paperback, 9781848875425 | Buy online at The Nile
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The Incorrigible Optimists Club

Author: Euan Cameron and Jean-Michel Guenassia  

Paperback

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.

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PRODUCT INFORMATION

Summary

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.

Read more

Description

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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Critic Reviews

“"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

Le Figaro

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About the Author

Jean-Michel Guenassia was born in Algeria, 1950. He is a prolific screenwriter and he lives in France.

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More on this Book

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.

Read more

Product Details

Publisher
Atlantic Books
Published
7th May 2015
Edition
Main
Pages
640
ISBN
9781848875425

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Save
23%
RRP $22.99
$17.70
Or pay later with
Check delivery options