Virginie Despentes – författare

"Det här är en alldeles lysande roman." - Dagens ETC

"Jag bara rinner rakt genom den här romanen, som är en bladvändare på repeat." - Sveriges Radio

"Och visst känns det bitvis påklistrat med alla janusansikten. Men ”Kära kräk” är en feelgoodkomedi om näthat och Metoo. Frågan är om en sådan bok skrivits tidigare? Ett godmodigt fuck you till samtiden måste man ändå älska." - Aftonbladet

”Kära kräk,

Jag såg vad du publicerade på ditt Instakonto. Du är som en duva som skiter på min axel när den flaxar förbi. Det är kletigt och rätt så otrevligt. Buhu buhu jag är en liten nolla som ingen bryr sig om och jag bjäbbar som en chihuahua för att få uppmärksamhet. Ära vare de sociala medierna: där fick du din kvart i rampljuset! Bevis? Att jag svarar.”

Oscar är en halvlyckad författare i fyrtioårsåldern med skrivkramp. Han är nykter alkoholist och knarkare, men numera håller han sig sysselsatt med att rasa på sociala medier. När Rebecca, en skådespelerska vars utseende han förolämpat, skickar honom ett rasande mejl, inleder de en konfrontativ korrespondens och i samma veva anklagas Oscar för sexuella trakasserier av en yngre före detta kollega. Det som följer är ett kompromisslöst samtal om livet under patriarkatet, och framför allt om beroende – av droger, av alkohol, av internet, av raseri.

Kära kräk är en roman som slår hårt åt alla håll. Den beskriver en kultur som gör både män och kvinnor sjuka. Det är en vild käftsmäll som utvecklar sig till en varm roman om tiden vi lever i, om oväntad vänskap, acceptans och förlåtelse.

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL 2018**WHO IS VERNON SUBUTEX?An urban legend.A fall from grace.The mirror who reflects us all.Vernon Subutex was once the proprietor of Revolver, an infamous music shop in Bastille. His legend spread throughout Paris. But by the 2000s his shop is struggling. With his savings gone, his unemployment benefit cut, and the friend who had been covering his rent suddenly dead, Vernon Subutex finds himself down and out on the Paris streets.He has one final card up his sleeve. Even as he holds out his hand to beg for the first time, a throwaway comment he once made on Facebook is taking the internet by storm. Vernon does not realise this, but the word is out: Vernon Subutex has in his possession the last filmed recordings of Alex Bleach, the famous musician and Vernon''s benefactor, who has only just died of a drug overdose. A crowd of people from record producers to online trolls and porn stars are now on Vernon''s trail.Translated from the French by Frank Wynne"Thrilling, magnificently audacious" Irish Times"Brimming with sex, violence and deviant behaviour" Sunday Times"Virginie Despentes''s Vernon Subutex trilogy is the zeitgeistiest thing I ever read" NELL ZINK

**Sunday Times Best Books of 2018**"Funny, irreverent and scathing" Guardian"Virginie Despentes is a true original, a punk rock George Eliot" ALEXANDRA KLEEMAN, author of You Too Could Have a Body Like MineRock star Alexandre Bleach might be dead, but he has a secret. It''s a secret that concerns several people, but the only person who can unlock it is Vernon Subutex, former record shop proprietor turned homeless messiah and guru, last seen hallucinating and feverish on a bench in the parc des Buttes Chaumont.Aïcha wants to know the truth behind the death of her mother, Vodka Satana. And if she finds the bastards responsible, she wants to make them pay, whatever Céleste thinks of her plan.Céleste wants Aïcha to get a grip and stop hanging around with Subutex''s gang of disciples. The Hyena wants to find the Bleach tapes. She wants to untangle her complicated feelings about Anaïs, her boss'' assistant. And speaking of her boss, she does not want Laurent Dopalet to discover how badly she has double-crossed him.Laurent Dopalet wants the Hyena to find and destroy the Bleach tapes. He wants to forget he ever knew Vodka Satana. He wants people to stop graffitiing his apartment with ludicrous allegations. Above all, he wants people to understand: NONE OF THIS IS HIS FAULT.THE SEQUEL TO VERNON SUBUTEX 1, SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE 2018.Translated from the French by Frank Wynne

"A literary phenomenon" The Times"Despentes'' writing is intelligent, outspoken, witty, shocking, propulsive and streetwise" Times Literary SupplementTHE FINAL VOLUME IN THE EPIC ROCK AND ROLL TRILOGY BY CULT AUTHOR VIRGINIE DESPENTESAlthough it means leaving behind the community of disciples who have followed him on his travels and assembled at his raves and gatherings, Vernon Subutex is compelled to return to Paris to visit the dentist.Once back in the city, he learns that Charles, his old friend from his days on the Paris streets, has died and left him half of a lottery win. But when Vernon returns to his disciples with news of this windfall, it does not take long before his followers start to turn on each other, and his good fortune provokes ruptures in his once harmonious community.Meanwhile, storm clouds are gathering for Aïcha and Céleste: Laurent Dopalet is determined to make them pay for their attack on him, whatever it takes and whoever gets hurt. And before long, the whole of Paris will be reeling in the wake of the terrorist atrocities of 2015 and 2016, and all the characters in this kaleidoscopic portrait of a city will be forced to a reckoning with each other.Translated from the French by Frank Wynne

A New Yorker best book of 2024 so far | A Financial Times Best Translated Book of 2024Library Science September book club pick | A Vulture most anticipated book of the fallOne of The New York Times' 24 works of fiction to read this fall | A Guardian best translated fiction pick | A Town & Country must-read fall book"It’s a thrill to hear the characters develop on the page . . . One of the better portrayals of addiction I’ve encountered in literature, up there with books by Jean Rhys and Leslie Jamison." ?Joumana Khatib, The New York Times Book Review"Engrossing . . . Full of emotional suspense." ?Pamela Druckerman, Financial TimesThe French novel taking the world by storm: an ultracontemporary Dangerous Liaisons about sex, feminism, and addiction.Dear Dickhead, I read your post on Insta. You’re like a pigeon shitting on my shoulder as you flap past. It’s shitty and unpleasant. Waah, waah, waah, I’m a pissy little pantywaist, no one loves me so I whimper like a Chihuahua in the hope someone will notice me. Congratulations: you’ve got your fifteen minutes of fame! You want proof? I’m writing to you. Oscar is a B-list novelist in his forties. He used to be an alcoholic and a cokehead, but now he keeps himself busy by ranting on social media. When Rebecca, an actress whose looks he insulted, sends him an angry email, they strike up a combative correspondence—at the very moment that Oscar is accused of sexual harassment by his former publicist. What ensues is a no-holds-barred conversation about life under the patriarchy, and above all about addiction—to drugs, to alcohol, to the internet, to rage.Virginie Despentes, the celebrated author of King Kong Theory, has written her breakthrough book: a Dangerous Liaisons for our time. We follow Rebecca and Oscar as they develop an unlikely friendship and argue over questions of right and wrong in a city—Paris—where pleasure, excess, and freedom rule the day, or used to. Dear Dickhead is a guns-blazing novel about a culture that makes men and women sick, and about how the search for feeling leaves us addicted to what makes us feel. The result is a provocative and unmissable book from the author hailed by The Guardian as France’s “rock and roll Zola.”

"The book of the moment" Sunday TimesA Guardian Book of the Year"Highly entertaining . . . subtle and complex" Guardian"Despentes at her very best" New European"Full of emotional suspense" FT"Brilliant - funny, wise and completely addictive - a work of angry, outrageous and hilarious genius" VICTORIA HISLOP"Full of energy and blistering rationality" LISA McINERNEYAn FT Best books of 2024Dear Dickhead,I read the piece you posted on Insta. You''re like a pigeon shitting on my shoulder as you flap past. It''s shitty and unpleasant. Congratulations: you''ve had your fifteen minutes of fame! You want proof? Here I am writing to you.Rebecca Latté is a famous actress in her fifties, perhaps past the peak of her career.Oscar Jayack is a middle-aged, moderately successful author who, in the wake of the #MeToo movement, has been accused of sexual harassment by his former publicist-turned-feminist blogger Zoé Katana.When Oscar insults Rebecca''s appearance on Instagram, she sends a scorching reply and the pair fall into a spiral of mutual antipathy. In back-and-forth emails, they vie for the last word, finding common ground in their experiences of addiction, assessing the changing world around them as Covid locks down Paris, and reluctantly beginning to lean on one another.A novel of rage, irreverence and vulnerability, exploring ageing, gender, privilege, addiction and consent, Dear Dickhead is an excoriating encapsulation of our times and of the broken human beings trying to make sense of it.Translated from the French by Frank Wynne

Stunning Claudine and gloomy Pauline pretend to be one person so that Claudine can be famous, but just as things take off, Claudine commits suicide. Pauline hatches a new scheme, taking on her dead sister’s identity, inhabiting her apartment, and reading her emails—slowly realizing the cost of femininity is to dazzle on the outside while rotting on the inside.