{"title":"Mathias Enard","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMathias Enard\u003c\/strong\u003e crafts richly woven narratives that blend history, memory, and vivid cultural encounters. His works often explore the complexities of East-West relations, imbuing each story with poetic depth and intellectual curiosity that challenges and enchants readers alike.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eExpect profound explorations of identity and human experience in a literary style that balances elegance with intense emotional resonance. From intimate reflections to sweeping tales, Enard's writing invites you into worlds where the past and present converge with remarkable originality.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"compass-by-mathias-enard-9781910695234","title":"Compass","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs night falls over Vienna, Franz Ritter, an insomniac musicologist, takes to his sickbed with an unspecified illness and spends a restless night drifting between dreams and memories, revisiting the important chapters of his life: his ongoing fascination with the Middle East and his numerous travels to Istanbul, Aleppo, Damascus, and Tehran, as well as the various writers, artists, musicians, academics, orientalists, and explorers who populate this vast dreamscape. At the centre of these memories is his elusive, unrequited love, Sarah, a fiercely intelligent French scholar caught in the intricate tension between Europe and the Middle East.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAn immersive, nocturnal, musical novel, full of generous erudition and bittersweet humour, \u003ci\u003eCompass\u003c\/i\u003e is a journey and a declaration of admiration, a quest for the otherness inside us all and a hand reaching out - like a bridge between West and East, yesterday and tomorrow.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46529916403948,"sku":"9781910695234","price":42.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/7706623482868.jpg?v=1749239686"},{"product_id":"the-annual-banquet-of-the-gravediggers-guild-by-mathias-enard-9781804270592","title":"The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers’ Guild","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo research his thesis on contemporary agrarian life, anthropology student David Mazon moves from Paris to La Pierre Saint-Christophe, a village in the marshlands of western France. Determined to capture the essence of rurality, the intrepid scholar shuttles around restlessly on his moped to interview local residents.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eUnbeknownst to David, in these nondescript lands, once theatres of wars and revolutions, Death leads the dance. When an existence ends, the Wheel of Life recycles its soul and hurls it back into the world as microbe, human or wild animal, sometimes in the past, sometimes in the future.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOnly once a year do Death and the living observe a temporary truce, during a gargantuan three-day feast where gravediggers gorge themselves on food, libations and language, presided over by the village mayor.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBrimming with Mathias Enard's characteristic wit and encyclopaedic brilliance, \u003ci\u003eThe Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers' Guild\u003c\/i\u003e is a riotous novel where the edges between past and present are constantly dissolving against a Rabelaisian backdrop of excess— and a paradoxically macabre paean to life's inexhaustible richness.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46552342692076,"sku":"9781804270592","price":36.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/10720223482830.jpg?v=1750039665"},{"product_id":"the-deserters-by-mathias-enard-9781804271636","title":"The Deserters","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFleeing a nameless war, an unknown soldier emerges from deep within the Mediterranean scrubland, dirty and exhausted. A chance meeting forces him to rethink his journey, and the price he puts on a life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOn 11 September 2001, aboard a small cruise ship on the River Havel near Berlin, a conference of scientists pays homage to the late East German mathematician Paul Heudeber, a Buchenwald survivor and steadfast antifascist who remained loyal to his side of the Berlin Wall despite the collapse of the Communist utopia, unaware that a new era of violence is about to descend.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOut of the tension between these narratives, everything that is at stake in times of conflict – in love as in politics – comes to light: commitment and betrayal, loyalty and lucidity, hope and survival.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eSuperbly translated by Charlotte Mandell, this latest work from Mathias Enard vividly lays bare the devastations of war on the most intimate aspects of our lives.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Gardners Books Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46832875045100,"sku":"9781804271636","price":29.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/f7f00192e261a4ff1cd8e8f3cb718004.jpg?v=1758436167"},{"product_id":"street-of-thieves-by-mathias-enard-9781940953014","title":"Street Of Thieves","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"A tremendous accomplishment... \u003ci\u003eZone\u003c\/i\u003e is, in short, one of the best books of the year\" - \u003ci\u003eDaily Beast\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eExiled from his family for religious transgressions related to his feelings for his cousin, Lakhdar finds himself on the streets of Barcelona, hiding from both the police and the Muslim Group for the Propagation of Koranic Thoughts. This is the same group he worked for in Tangier shortly after being cast out by his father.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eLakhdar's transformations – from a boy into a man, from a devout Muslim into a sinner – unfold against the backdrop of some of the most significant events of recent years: the tumultuous and inspiring eruption of the Arab Spring and the grim collapse of Europe's economy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIf all of that isn't enough, Lakhdar reunites with a childhood friend who is planning an assassination, a murder that Lakhdar opposes. A finalist for the prestigious Prix Goncourt, \u003ci\u003eStreet of Thieves\u003c\/i\u003e solidifies Mathias Enard's place as one of France's most ambitious and astute contemporary novelists. This book may even surpass Enard's earlier work, \u003ci\u003eZone\u003c\/i\u003e, which Christophe Claro boldly declared to be \"the novel of the decade, if not of the century.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eMathias Enard\u003c\/b\u003e studied Persian and Arabic and spent extensive periods in the Middle East. A professor of Arabic at the University of Barcelona, he won the Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie and the Prix Edmée de La Rochefoucauld for his first novel, \u003ci\u003eLa perfection du tir\u003c\/i\u003e. He has been awarded numerous prizes for \u003ci\u003eZone\u003c\/i\u003e, including the Prix du Livre Inter and the Prix Décembre.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCharlotte Mandell\u003c\/b\u003e has translated works from numerous notable French authors, including Proust, Flaubert, Genet, Maupassant, and Blanchot, among others. She received a Literary Translation Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts for her translation of Enard's \u003ci\u003eZone\u003c\/i\u003e along with a French Voices grant.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46998632464620,"sku":"9781940953014","price":34.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/1340733482879.jpg?v=1763223801"},{"product_id":"street-of-thieves-by-mathias-enard-9780992974763","title":"Street of Thieves","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRecipient of three French literary awards, Mathias Enard's follow-up to the critically acclaimed \u003ci\u003eZone\u003c\/i\u003e is a timely novel about a young Moroccan boy caught up in the turbulent events of the Middle East, and a possible murder.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eExiled from his family for religious transgressions related to his feelings for his cousin, Lakhdar finds himself on the streets of Barcelona hiding from both the police and the Muslim Group for the Propagation of Koranic Thoughts, a group he worked for in Tangier not long after being thrown out on the streets by his father.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eLakhdar's transformations—from a boy into a man, from a devout Muslim into a sinner—take place against the backdrop of some of the most important events of the past few years: the violence and exciting eruption of the Arab Spring and the devastating collapse of Europe's economy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47072672317676,"sku":"9780992974763","price":32.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/14555243482541.jpg?v=1765125315"},{"product_id":"zone-by-mathias-enard-9781804271735","title":"Zone","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrancis Mirkovic, a French Intelligence Services agent for fifteen years, is travelling first class on the train from Milan to Rome. Handcuffed to the luggage rack above him is a briefcase containing a wealth of information about the war criminals, terrorists, and arms dealers of the Zone—the Mediterranean region, from Barcelona to Beirut, from Algiers to Trieste, which has become his speciality—to sell to the Vatican.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eExhausted by alcohol and amphetamines, he revisits the violent history of the Zone and his own participation in that violence, beginning as a mercenary fighting for a far-right Croatian militia in the 1990s. One of the truly original books of the decade, and written as a single, hypnotic, propulsive, physically irresistible sentence, Mathias Enard's \u003cem\u003eZone\u003c\/em\u003e is an Iliad for our time, an extraordinary and panoramic view of violent conflict and its consequences in the twentieth century and beyond.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47601480466668,"sku":"9781804271735","price":27.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/38b6fee29fcb34285bbdb068bd39cd30.jpg?v=1778036522"},{"product_id":"tell-them-of-battles-kings-and-elephants-by-mathias-enard-9781910695692","title":"Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1506, Michelangelo—a young but already renowned sculptor—is invited by the sultan of Constantinople to design a bridge over the Golden Horn. The sultan has offered, alongside an enormous payment, the promise of immortality, since Leonardo da Vinci's design was rejected: \u003cem\u003e'You will surpass him in glory if you accept, for you will succeed where he has failed, and you will give the world a monument without equal.'\u003c\/em\u003e Michelangelo, after some hesitation, flees Rome and an irritated Pope Julius II—whose commission he leaves unfinished—and arrives in Constantinople for this truly epic project.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOnce there, he explores the beauty and wonder of the Ottoman Empire, sketching and describing his impressions along the way, and becomes immersed in cloak-and-dagger palace intrigues as he struggles to create what could be his greatest architectural masterwork.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eTell Them of Battles, Kings and Elephants\u003c\/em\u003e—constructed from real historical fragments—is a thrilling page-turner about why stories are told, why bridges are built, and how seemingly unmatched pieces, seen from the opposite sides of civilization, can mirror one another.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48147872481516,"sku":"9781910695692","price":32.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781910695692-tell-them-of-battles-kings-and-elephants.jpg?v=1786452191"},{"product_id":"perfecting-the-shot-by-mathias-enard-9781804272633","title":"Perfecting the Shot","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn a nameless city torn apart by civil war, a teenage sniper has only one goal: to fire the \u003cem\u003eperfect shot\u003c\/em\u003e. He sublimates himself into his weapon, learns to maintain impassivity, controls his breath, listens to his body and the beat of his heart. Lying in wait on rooftops, he takes aim at people below while his traumatised mother cowers in their flat. But the violence eats away at any sense of morality as he kills civilians and combatants indiscriminately, for the sake of killing itself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHis routine is disrupted by the arrival of Myrna, a fifteen-year-old girl hired to care for his mother, and his increasingly disturbing obsession with her soon threatens to push them all into the abyss.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eNow appearing in English more than twenty years after its original publication, Mathias Enard's debut novel is a timeless study of how extreme violence corrodes the soul, tracking the convulsions of a brutalised mind in spare, unflinching prose.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67798134620396,"sku":"9781804272633","price":32.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781804272633-perfecting-the-shot-1.jpg?v=1792472328"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.live\/collections\/mathias-enard.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}