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What can they read?

71 0
02.07.2025

A bookseller recently suggested that I read Incorrigible Optimists Club by Jean-Michel Guenassia (translated by Euan Cameron). It is a book about coming of age of a young boy in Paris in the late 1950s. This is an extraordinary time in the country. There is terrible violence in Algeria and conflicting opinions and strong emotions in France about the unfolding tragedy there - the post-war France is unsettled by the memories of the Nazi occupation; there are deep divisions among the youth and their parents about political order and global alliances; notions of liberty and freedom are being debated fiercely; and new ideas through extraordinary writings on existentialism from people like Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Camus are reaching a wide audience. The nearly 700-page book beautifully captures these threads from the perspective of a young boy, who is dealing with love, loss and family disputes - while playing foosball at a local bistro, reading compulsively and being in the presence of exiles from Soviet........

© The Express Tribune