In this brilliant and sobering self-portrait, Edouard Lev? hides nothing from his readers, setting out his entire life, more or less at random, in a string of declarative sentences. "Autoportrait" is a physical, psychological, sexual, political, and philosophical triumph. Beyond "sincerity," Lev? works toward an objectivity so radical it could pass for crudeness, triviality, even banality: the author has stripped himself bare. With the force of a set of maxims or morals, Lev?'s prose seems at first to be an autobiography without sentiment, as though written by a machine--until, through the...

The Unprofessionals is an energetic collection celebrating the bold writers at the forefront of today's literary world--featuring stories, essays, and poems from "America's greatest literary journal" (Time)

For more than half a century, the Paris Review has launched some of the most exciting new literary voices, from Philip Roth to David Foster Wallace. But rather than trading on nostalgia, the storied journal--reconceived in 2010 by editor Lorin Stein--continues to search outside...

A controversial, intelligent, and mordantly funny new novel from France's most famous living literary figure

It's 2022. Francois is bored. He's a middle-aged lecturer at the New Sorbonne University and an expert on J. K. Huysmans, the famed nineteenth-century novelist associated with the Decadent movement. But Francois's own decadence is of considerably smaller scale. He sleeps with his students, eats microwave dinners, and watches YouPorn.

Meanwhile, it's election season, and in an alliance with the Socialists, France's new Islamic party sweeps to power--and...