Anne Serre – författare

The International Booker Prize-shortlisted masterpiece on grief and loss, from one of France's most original writers at work todayA Leopard-Skin Hat may be Anne Serre’s most moving novel yet. A masterpiece of simplicity, emotion and elegance, it is the story of an intense friendship between the Narrator and his close childhood friend, Fanny, who suffers from profound psychological disorders.A series of short scenes paints the portrait of a strong-willed and tormented young woman battling many demons, and of the Narrator’s loving and anguished attachment to her. Serre poignantly depicts the bewildering back and forth between hope and despair involved in such a relationship, while playfully calling into question the very form of the novel. Written in the aftermath of the death of the author’s little sister, A Leopard-Skin Hat is both the celebration of a tragically foreshortened life and a valedictory farewell.Translated from French by Mark Hutchinson.

Fairy-tale atmospheres and complex narratives are a hallmark of the fiction of Anne Serre, represented here by three radically heterodox novellas.  The Fool “may have stepped out of a tarot pack: I came across this little figure rather late in life. Not being familiar with playing cards, still less with the tarot, I was a bit uncomfortable when I first set eyes on him. I believe in magic figures and distrust them…a figure observing you can turn the world upside down.”  The Narrator concerns a sort of writer-hero: “Outcasts who can’t even tell a story are what you might call dropouts, lunatics, misfits. With them the narrator is in his element, but has one huge advantage: he can tell a story.” Little Table, Set Yourself!—a moral tale concerning a family happily polyamorous—is the most overtly a fable of these three works, and the briefest, but thin as a razor is thin.  A dream logic rules each of these wildly unpredictable, sensual and surreal novellas: these may be romps, but nevertheless deeply moral and entirely unforgettable ones.

Virtue and Rosalind is where our wildest dreams come true. That popular, but not very brilliant, author who’s winning all the prizes? Our writer-protagonist will bump her off. Uncle Henri who walked off during a family picnic and never came back? Rather than blame him, she admires his will to radically renounce the past for a woman in a red skirt, revisiting the picnic site like sacred ground.But our heroine has more to accomplish on her present course, which glimmers at every turn with material for new characters, new novels. Central to this are her relationships with other women, who she regards as the finest and most meticulous lacemakers: absorbed in what they’re doing, creating something rather beautiful. They share her love of art – and of keeping an ample distance away from all the rest. After all, our darkest secrets live in the family.International Booker shortlistee Anne Serre reaffirms herself a master of literary form and innovation. Reading her, we read a hundred books at once. At first we might not recognise ourselves in this dazzling hall of mirrors, but by the end of it, we know just who we are.

In a large country house shut off from the world by a gated garden, three young governesses responsible for the education of a group of little boys are preparing a party. The governesses, however, seem to spend more time running around in a state of frenzied desire than attending to the children’s education. One of their main activities is lying in wait for any passing stranger, and then throwing themselves on him like drunken Maenads. The rest of the time they drift about in a kind of sated, melancholy calm, spied upon by an old man in the house opposite, who watches their goings-on through a telescope. As they hang paper lanterns and prepare for the ball in their own honor, and in honor of the little boys rolling hoops on the lawn, much is mysterious: one reviewer wrote of the book’s “deceptively simple words and phrasing, the transparency of which works like a mirror reflecting back on the reader.”Written with the elegance of old French fables, the dark sensuality of Djuna Barnes and the subtle comedy of Robert Walser, this semi-deranged erotic fairy tale introduces American readers to the marvelous Anne Serre.

Anna has been living happily for twenty years with loving, sturdy, outgoing Guillaume when she suddenly (truly at first sight) falls in love with Thomas. Intelligent and handsome, but apparently scarred by a terrible early emotional wound, he reminds Anna of Jude the Obscure. Adrift and lovelorn, she tries unsuccessfully to fend off her attraction, torn between the two men. “How strange it is to leave someone you love for someone you love. You cross a footbridge that has no name, that’s not named in any poem. No, nowhere is a name given to this bridge, and that is why Anna found it so difficult to cross.”Anne Serre offers here, in her third book in English, her most direct novel to date. The Beginners is unpredictable, sensual, exhilarating, oddly moral, perverse, absurd—and unforgettable.

In a large country house, shut off from the world within a gated garden, three young women responsible for the education of a group of little boys are hanging paper lanterns for a party. Their desires, however, lie elsewhere... Meet The Governesses: wild or drifting about in a melancholy calm, spied upon by Monsieur Austeur, fascinated by the ever more mysterious unfolding of events, like the charms and spells of a midsummer night's dream...

The International Booker Prize-shortlisted masterpiece on grief and loss, from one of France's most original writers at work todayA Leopard-Skin Hat may be Anne Serre’s most moving novel yet. A masterpiece of simplicity, emotion and elegance, it is the story of an intense friendship between the Narrator and his close childhood friend, Fanny, who suffers from profound psychological disorders.A series of short scenes paints the portrait of a strong-willed and tormented young woman battling many demons, and of the Narrator’s loving and anguished attachment to her. Serre poignantly depicts the bewildering back and forth between hope and despair involved in such a relationship, while playfully calling into question the very form of the novel. Written in the aftermath of the death of the author’s little sister, A Leopard-Skin Hat is both the celebration of a tragically foreshortened life and a valedictory farewell.Translated from French by Mark Hutchinson.

The International Booker Prize-shortlisted masterpiece on grief and loss, from one of France's most original writers at work todayA Leopard-Skin Hat may be Anne Serre’s most moving novel yet. A masterpiece of simplicity, emotion and elegance, it is the story of an intense friendship between the Narrator and his close childhood friend, Fanny, who suffers from profound psychological disorders.A series of short scenes paints the portrait of a strong-willed and tormented young woman battling many demons, and of the Narrator’s loving and anguished attachment to her. Serre poignantly depicts the bewildering back and forth between hope and despair involved in such a relationship, while playfully calling into question the very form of the novel. Written in the aftermath of the death of the author’s little sister, A Leopard-Skin Hat is both the celebration of a tragically foreshortened life and a valedictory farewell.Translated from French by Mark Hutchinson.

From the brilliant, sui generis Anne Serre - author of the celebrated Governesses - come three bewitching, thoroughly out-of-the-way tales. 'To make a pact with the thing that threatens you is arguably the smartest trick of all.' 'The Fool' may have stepped out of a tarot pack - to walk a mountain trail or worm his way into a writer's mind. 'The Narrator' proposes his mirror image, a storyteller in sheep's clothing, who has a bone to pick with language. In 'The Wishing Table', the orgiastic antics of an incestuous family are recounted by one of three daughters. A dream logic rules each of these unpredictable, sensual and surreal stories: romps no doubt, yet deeply moral, and entirely unforgettable ones.

Kaum etwas produziert so viel Literatur wie das Reisen. Auch Anne Serre ist unterwegs, zum Literaturfestival, per TGV erster Klasse. Und schon geht''s los: Unverhofft tauchen Familiendramen aus der Erinnerung, wenn der Zug irgendwo hält, wo sich das Leben gegabelt hat. Und dann ist da ein spanischer Kollege namens Vila-Matas, den sie gar nicht kennt, nur seine Bücher, die sie liebt. Sitzt er ihr gegenüber ? Den Hut im Gesicht ? Hat er im Hotel ein Zimmer nebenan bezogen und kommuniziert mit Klopfzeichen ? Ist er gar mit einem Mal Herr des Geschehens ? Wohin geht diese Reise überhaupt ? Ein feder­leichter Roman, in dem der Schmerz der Erinnerung mit der Wirklichkeit ein fröhlich surreales Spiel treibt.»Anne Serre ist eine veritable Entdeckung.« Meike Feßmann, Süddeutsche Zeitung

»Ich halte mich für sehr geschickt, wenn es um die Verfertigung von Träumen geht. Pro Nacht ­gelingen mir im Schnitt vier, und es sind wahre Romane, genauer gesagt Erzählungen.« Träume, Erinnerun­gen, Fantasien, mal scharf konturiert, mal vage verschwimmend – daraus knüpft Anne Serre ihr raffiniertes, spielerisch leichtes Selbstportrait in ­dreiunddreißig Facetten. Eine unbekannte Mutter, die Liz Taylor ähnelt, ein verheirateter Liebhaber, der mit einem Revolver spielt, ein anderer, der an Becketts Todestag auftaucht … und wie Karten, die man aufdeckt, erscheint mal ein weibliches, mal ein männliches, verletzliches oder mörderisches Ich. Ausgezeichnet mit dem Prix Goncourt de la Nouvelle.

Sie sind zu dritt, und in dieser abgeschiedenen Villa hinter hohen Bäumen sind sie die ­Königinnen: die Gouvernanten. Auf die Erziehung der ihnen anvertrauten Jungen geben sie wenig, lieber ­lassen sie sich ­melancholisch durch die hellen Tage treiben. Manchmal zieht es sie zum goldenen Tor, wo sich, wild vor Verlangen, die Männer ­drängeln. ­Erhört werden sie alle nicht, denn hier ­stellen die Gouvernanten die Regeln auf. Verliert sich aber ein ­Fremder in den Garten, gehen sie wie im Rausch auf die Jagd, richten ihre Beute ­unerbittlich zu, verschlingen sie, mit ­Küssen und mit Bissen … Mit ­Eleganz, dunkler Sinnlichkeit und subtiler Komik erzählt Anne Serre in diesem fantastischen ­Märchen von der Macht der Blicke und von weiblichem ­Begehren.»Die Gouvernanten driften durch ein Fieber aus häuslichem Leben und sexueller Wildheit. Eine sinnliche, surrealistische Tollerei.« Kirkus Review