Never one to avoid challenging questions, in this poignant triptych Laroche examines the relationship between a writer and his words: suggesting that, perhaps, he is the orphan of his own work.
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“luminous ... a secret spiritual history of the post-war world”
— John Banville
A forlorn traveler is taken in by three suffering orphans, who, in the midst of their pain, give him food and shelter. The first, orphaned by history, still mourns a father who was sent to a Nazi concentration camp, never to return. The second, orphaned by pathology, has a rare disease, and is facing madness alone in a mountain chalet. The third, orphaned by philosophy, is a teenager who has decided to cut all ties with his parents.
Never one to avoid challenging questions, in this poignant triptych Laroche examines the relationship between a writer and his words: suggesting that, perhaps, he is the orphan of his own work.
“Hadrien Laroche is one of the most talented and original thinkers of his generation.”
— Jacques Derrida
“An original and challenging short novel, structured in three stories, subtly and enigmatically connected and providing a high literary quality to the excellent narrative.”
— Norman Manéa
Born in Paris, Hadrien Laroche is a former student of the École normale supérieure and completed his doctorate in philosophy under Jacques Derrida at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). He is the author of three novels as well as books on Jean Genet (translated as The Last Genet: A Writer in Revolt) and Marcel Duchamp.