Nicolas Mathieu – författare

''[A] page-turner of a novel . . . I couldn''t put the book down'' - New York Times''A multi-viewpoint panorama of thwarted aspirations, spiced with breathy sex scenes and nostalgic detail.'' - Mail on SundayAugust 1992. Fourteen-year-old Anthony and his cousin decide to steal a canoe to fight their all-consuming boredom on a lazy summer afternoon. Their simple act of defiance will lead to Anthony''s first love and his first real summer - that one summer that comes to define everything that follows.Over four sultry summers in the 1990s, Anthony and his friends grow up in a France trapped between nostalgia and decline, decency and rage, desperate to escape their small town, the scarred countryside and grey council estates, in search of a more hopeful future.Nicolas Mathieu''s eloquent novel gives a pitch-perfect depiction of teenage angst. Winner of the Prix Goncourt, it won praise for its portrayal of people living on the margins and shines a light on the struggles of French society today.''Deeply felt . . . An exceptional portrait of youth'' - Irish Times

Powerful and compelling'' Guardian''Mathieu, a wonderful writer, echoes the grittiness and compassion of Émile Zola in Germinal'' Sunday TimesAfter the closure of a small-town factory is announced, the local community is hit by the prospect of mass unemployment. With nothing left to lose, the desperate workers take matters into their own hands. Martel, a former trade union rep, and Bruce, a bodybuilder on steroids, resort to extreme measures. And after an attempted kidnapping goes horribly wrong, they are dragged into a spiraling frenzy of crime. In the political tradition of Balzac and Zola, Of Fangs and Talons announces Nicolas Mathieu as one of the most urgent contemporary voices in French literature.''Nicolas Mathieu has written one of the best crime novels of the year''Le Monde