Jérôme Lindon - Paperback

by Jean Echenoz (Author), Mark Polizzotti (Translator)

"Echenoz is one of the contemporary literature's rare graceful magicians." --Bookforum

Jérôme Lindon is a genre-defying meditation on the friendship and working relationship between Jean Echenoz and his editor, the founder of Les Editions de Minuit, Jerome Lindon. Lindon published the work of Samuel Beckett, Marguerite Duras, and Robbe-Grillet, among so many other giants. This voice-driven ramble recounts in candid, understated, and hilarious glimpses Echenoz's encounters with his publisher over a period of twenty years, and in the process reveals an intimate portrait of both of them. Echenoz's spare, lyrical, and playful descriptions of early-morning phone calls and exchanges over lunch illuminate Lindon's impulsiveness and impatience, his matter-of-fact generosity, and the humanity beneath his gruff exterior. In his unassuming way, Echenoz's lets us in on how his own literary path was shaped by Jerome Lindon's belief in him and explores the deep bonds between a writer and his publisher. A tender tribute.

Author Biography

Jean Echenoz was born in 1947 in Vaucluse, France. He is the author of more than a a dozen novels, including Cherokee, Double Jeopardy, Chopin's Move, Big Blondes, Piano, Ravel, Running, Lightning, and Special Envoy. His work has received a great number of literary prizes, among them the Prix Goncourt, the Prix Médicis, and the European Literature Jeopardy Prize. He lives in Paris.

TRANSLATOR BIO:

Mark Polizzotti has translated more than sixty books from the French, including Arthur Rimbaud's The Drunken Boat: Selected Writings and Jean Echenoz's Command Performance, and is the author of thirteen books, including Revolution of the Mind: The Life of André Breton, Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto, Why Surrealism Matters, and Jump Cuts: Essays. He has translated Scholastique Mukasonga's Kibogo (Archipelago Books) and his translation of Mukasonga's Murmurs from the Hills is forthcoming with Archipelago. He lives in New York.