The Patagonian Hare: A Memoir
Author(s): Claude Lanzmann
Born to a Jewish family in Paris, 1925, Lanzmann's first encounter with radicalism was as part of the Resistance during the Nazi occupation. He and his father were soldiers of the underground until the end of the war, smuggling arms and making raids on the German army. After the liberation of France, he studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, making money as a student in surprising ways (by dressing as a priest and collecting donations, and stealing philosophy books from bookshops). It was in Paris however, that he met Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. It was a life-changing meeting. The young man began an affair with the older de Beauvoir that would last for seven years. He became the editor of Sartre's political-literary journal, Les Temps Modernes - a position which he holds to this day - and came to know the most important literary and philosophical figures of postwar France. And all this before he was thirty years old...Written in precise, rich prose of rare beauty, organized - like human recollection itself - in interconnected fragments that eschew conventional chronology, and describing in detail the making of his seminal film Shoah, The Patagonian Hare becomes a work of art, more significant, more ambitious than mere memoir. In it, Lanzmann has created a love song to life balanced by the eye of a true auteur.
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Praise for "The Patagonian Hare"
"His is an extraordinary life . . . It is a rumbustious, engaging, frustrating, joyous rampage through some of the most significant chapters of postwar history in the company of an unforgettable man." --David Cesarani, "Literary Review"
"As the 21st century takes a new and frightening shape, it is well to remember the strange heroism of men like Lanzmann, who opposed the darkest forces of the 20th century with an unmitigated belief in freedom, and not just freedom of belief." --Andrew Hussey, "The Independent"
"A work of art . . . [Lanzmann] has lived every moment the way one writes a story or directs a film: completely, intensely . . . ["The Patagonian Hare" is] a true literary and historic event." --"Le Monde"
"Lanzmann reminds us in these pages that he is a tremendous writer." --"Marianne"
"This book isn't a compendium of memories . . . It's a great, epic work, heartbreaking and full of enthusiasm. The writing dances, shudders, trembles and melts voluptuously. It has that quality of changing your life." --"Le Point"
"Without a doubt, one of the masterpieces of world literature." --"Die Welt"
"A great book." --Joan de Sagarra, "La Vanguardia"
"This book is a masterpiece, both picaresque and serious, funny and tragic." --Bernard-Henri Levy, "Le Point"
"Instead of going to the beach, putting on a bathing suit and going swimming, or going to the movies, I stay in my room and read a book, and I swim in the sea of wisdom. Right now, I am reading a magnificent book by Claude Lanzmann . . . Reading ["The Patagonian Hare"] gives me the greatest pleasure in life." --Shimon Peres, "Israel Hayom"
"A masterpiece of our time. The suggestive power of this evocation of the past century is without precedent." --"Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung"
"We follow Lanzmann's adventures as if they came from a novel by London, Hemingway or Kessel." --Max Gallo, "Le Figaro"
"Half a century
Claude Lanzmann is an 84-year-old French journalist, political commentator and film director of the classic nine-and-a-half hour Holocaust documentary film Shoah (1985). Lanzmann is chief editor of the journal Les Temps Modernes, which was founded by Jean-Paul Sartre. His memoir, The Patagonian Hare, is his first book.
General Fields
- :
- : Atlantic Books
- : Atlantic Books
- : 01 October 2012
- : 198mm X 129mm
- : United Kingdom
- : 01 February 2013
- : books
Special Fields
- : Claude Lanzmann
- : Paperback
- : 1
- : 791.430233092
- : 544