Wandering Star (Lannan Translation Selection) Book

“This is Nobel-quality writing, an international author with a mature style telling a story to the peak of his capacity. The English language needs more of it.”â??The Telegraph From the winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Literature, Wandering Star is the story of two young women, one uprooted by the Holocaust and the other by the founding of the state of Israel. Bearing witness to the boundless strength of the spirit, and based on his own experience as a child in World War II, J.M.G. Le Clézio chronicles the saga of a young girl, Esther, who, in a small mountain village north of Nice occupied by Italian forces, learns what it means to be Jewish in wartime Europe. A quiet young teenager, she suffers the loss of her beloved father and, with her mother, is forced to flee advancing German troops. At war’s end, Esther and her mother make an arduous journey to Jerusalem, where their path crosses with a group of displaced refugees, including Nejma, a Palestinian girl whose story of life in the camps balances Esther’s own tale of suffering and survival. Esther and Nejma never meet again, but in their respective exiles, they are forever haunted by the memory of one another. Wandering Star is a powerful coming-of-age story and, as Le Figaro notes, truly “a luminous lesson in humanity.” J.M.G. Le Clézio is a distinguished French author with over thirty novels, essays, and story collections to his credit. He is the winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature. "What makes Wandering Star such a remarkable novel is Le Clézio's overwhelming empathy, the lack of authorial judging or politicizing in a story that could so easily have been sentimentalized or radicalized...No one who reads this novel can doubt [Le Clézio's] stature and importance as a writer."â??Times Literary Supplement"[Le Clézio's] work reflects a seemingly insatiable restlessness and sense of wonder about other places and other cultures."â??New York Times "If a Romare Bearden painting, a Pablo Neruda poem, and a Billie Holiday blues were by means of an arcane alchemy combined to form some rare and breathtaking thing, it might be called Wandering Star...Experimental, beautiful, terrifying, sad, numbing, revealing, curious...[this] is a story whose end all must strive to tell."â??Political Affairs"One couldn't ask for a more timely or important book."--Lisa Gozashti, Brookline Booksmith, in The Boston Globe"...A moving account...one of the most powerful qualities of the novel is the sense Le Clézio creates of the human connection to place and the anguish of exile and dispossession."â??The Observer"...compelling, mesmerizing, masterful and brilliant...I highly recommend Wandering Star to everyone."â??Jew Wishes"Those unfamiliar with Mr. Le Clézio and his work should know that he is considered that rare beast by the French: an artist and a best-selling author."â??Dallas Morning News"Le Clézio is a bewitching story-teller with a penchant for tales of survival that are at once acutely realistic and mythically romantic...[he] writes with high compassion and deep wonder of the boundless strength of the spirit."â??Booklist"If Le Clézio had written solely of the Palestinian or Jewish refugees, this would be an affecting novel. By taking no sides, by showing the agony of allâ??he has produced a near masterpiece."â??RALPH Magazine"Wandering Star is unquestionably a work of power and beauty."â??Blogcritics Magazine"Le Clézio is a subtle writer, a gentle reporter on one of the most underreported seismic events of the 20th Centuryâ??the immense number of refugees that have been and are crowding camps in all parts of the world: people without a state, without a home, without a hope living in treeless, waterless, makeshift camps with the most minimal resources, often in near-starvation... "How many doors do we have to pass through?" one heroine of Wandering Star wonders, midway through her journey from wartorn Europe to her new home in Israel. Pages later, the other [heroine], marooned in a Palestinian refugee camp, realizes that her people have been left at the end of the world and that no one cares. Le Clézio has fashioned an intimate, searching novel about the price of war and exile."â??Stewart O'Nan"[An] exquisitely written story...I was struck by the beauty in the midst of the searing pain."â??Penny Rosenwasser, author of Voices from a Promised Land"Wandering Star is a luminous lesson in humanity amid the ruins of civilization and intelligence."â??Le Figaro"This is a story about people and what happens to them in war and exile: human misery and happy moments; the potential for peace and the effects of war; the forces of nature both beneficial and disastrous. This is a marvelous piece of literature."â??Jewish Book World"Beautifully written and seamlessly translated by C. Dickson, Wandering Star is both a coming-of-age story and a powerful tale of survival. For readers hoping to better understand the world we live in, this book also helps shed light on current events in the Middle East."â??MoorishGirl"Le Clézio...seeks the signs of human misery and of potential peace at the very heart of life, in a confrontation with time and the elements; with the sun and the earth, with birth and death, with the mystery of origins and the enigma of the future, with the necessity of both remembering and forgetting, without which nothing can be healed."â??Le Monde"This novel brilliantly depicts the universality of human suffering, but it also affirms the existence of kindness and understanding...Le Clézio rises above politics and religious and cultural differences to express the girls? humanity in the struggles they both face."â??MultiCultural Review"From page one, I knew I was in capable hands. J.M.G. Le Clézio's novel of a young Jewish girl coming of age in wartime France is compelling."â??Baltimore Jewish Times"Le Clézio goes beyond politics, cultural differences, and historical moments to cast light on the universal feelings in experiences of suffering and the struggles, desires, and dreams growing out of such experiences."â??Midwest Book Review"J.M.G Le Clézio focuses on the priceless moments of the human experience that instill love, harmony, respect and clarity by outshining even our closest burning star. A must read for anyone that cares about anyone."â??WAV Magazine"..the beauty of Le Clézio's language belies the horror of his subject...We can only hope that Esther and Nejma might someday walk out of these pages, meet once more, and plant and nourish the garden that others battle so feverishly to destroy."â??Bloomsbury Review"Striking a delicate balance between despair and dignity, between incantation and prayer, in [Wandering Star], Le Clézio touches upon each of the many themes he has addressed during his thirty years as a novelist, mixing and weaving them together into a story that combines elements of adventure, literary epic, confession, and history. It is at one and the same time a painful cry and a peaceful sigh."â??Télérama"[Wandering Star] can unquestionably be ranked among the very great novels. This is true not only because of the precision and evocative power of the writing, the subtlety and balance of the construction, the magnitude and loftiness of the subject, but also because of the stature and the trajectory of the protagonist, Esther Grève, who survives the holocaust only to be confronted in the land of her dreams with another tragedy."â??L'Humanité"In simple lyrical sentences, the complete tale of lives is told, purposely poignant."â??EclecticaRead More