The five books of 2021 to read or reread
Did you miss 2021 either, despite the repetitive nature of the measures, reopenings and other closures that punctuated our hard skin? Here's something to get you caught up, before or after 2022, with five books that have made their mark on our editorial team this year... and, let's be crazy, that have made their mark on the year altogether.
1. Gianfranco Calligarich, The last summer in town (Gallimard)
This cult classic, finally translated into French, tells the story of a young man from Milan who arrives in Rome to try his hand at a career in journalism. We follow him on his nocturnal wanderings, drifting through the city like ether, his dreams of glory fading away with the early morning mist. And when disillusionment shrouds his daily life, only love remains to blow it all apart. Love then appears in the fleeting form of Arianna, a young woman as exuberant as she is fragile. This novel has the casual elegance of figures clad in linen, strolling along the seashore; it is the politeness of despair, the gentleness of radical negations. Above all, it is the romantic high of 2021.
2. Ahmet Atlan, Ms Hayat (Actes Sud)
Fazıl, a young student, sees his life turned upside down when his family is ruined: «a large country [has] banned the import of tomatoes.» He leaves his comfortable apartment and takes a room in a seedy inn where a whole cross-section of society’s outcasts gathers: a «poet,» would-be mobsters, a transsexual… To make money, the young literary type starts working as an extra on a TV show where young women sing in front of an audience paid to clap, cheer, and sway to the beat. It is there that he meets the two women who will push him to see the world as it really is. These two women help shape Fazıl’s evolution and growing awareness in a country that is gradually closing in on itself. For unlike the protagonist, who grows ever freer and more alive, Turkey itself is slipping—almost unnoticed—into a dictatorship. Accused of participating in the failed coup of 2016, the author wrote this book in prison. This lends the story an even more political edge.
Read also | Becoming free in Turkey, for the love of Madame Vie
3. William Sheller, William (Editions des Equateurs)
A deeply moving writing style imbued with British sarcasm, just like the first name that gave this book its title. Keys to understanding his work: the notes and words that make it up—«garden,» «child,» «proud,» «happy.» And the raw, emotional account of a man who leaves nothing out—his family struggles, his complex bisexuality, his cocaine-fueled wanderings—leading to the beginning of the end… of the song. Who knows what the man who has as reported in our publication: «We come into the world blind, then we begin to realize that Dad is the one with the mustache, Mom is the one with long hair, and then we have to fill this life with meaning…».
4. André Manoukian, On the Music Trail (HarperCollins)
Music evokes our memories and 2021 (even though (though we might like to forget it) was no exception to the rule. That is why On the Music Trail by pianist and jazz musician André Manoukian is delightful. The entire world of this somewhat zany enthusiast is captured in this collection of essays: how can we rethink music—or simply think about it? It features historical as well as theoretical anecdotes about music, its influences, and its «practitioners.» Always with a touch of humor, sensuality, and the absurd. A whimsical musical journey that allows us to play with musical conventions to perceive a different sensibility. After all, isn’t that what music is all about?
5. Pablo Martìn Sànchez, The anarchist whose name was like mine (Editions Zulma & La Contre Allée)
It reads like a history book of sorts. Except it’s anything but boring. It begins with the author, who’s feeling down. He can’t get published, «[blaming] his failure on a surname that’s too common.» So he types his name into Google and realizes he has a multitude of namesakes. One of them is a guy born in the late 19thth century. This Pablo Martín Sánchez is an anarchist who took part in a revolutionary expedition in 1924 to try to overthrow the Spanish dictatorship. The author decides to write his story. That’s the basic plot. But the the richness of the work, it is above all this immersion in the Parisian and international anarchist scene of the early 20thth century. An adventure of guts, heart and ideals.
Write to the editor: redaction@leregardlibre.com
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Gianfranco Calligarich
The last summer in town
Translated by Laura Brignon
Gallimard
2021
212 pages
Ahmet Atlan
Ms Hayat
Translated by Julien Lapeyre de Cabanes
Actes Sud
2021
272 pages
William Sheller
William
Editions des Equateurs
2021
489 pages
André Manoukian
On the Roads of Music
Harper Collins
2021
192 pages
Pablo Martìn Sànchez
The anarchist whose name was like mine
Translated from Jean-Marie Saint-Lu
Editions Zulma & La Contre Allée
2021
604 pages
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