Gary, Romain - David Leitch
DAVID LEITCH
Emile Ajar—whoever he is—has lately become a household name in France. His fame stems from having declined a literary prize, the Goncourt [for La Vie devant Soi].
There were several other bull points for news editors in the 'affaire Ajar', not least the fact that his name is a pseudonym…. Naturally this began guessing games about his true identity: was he an already famous writer—Romain Gary, for instance—or a relation of his?…
In any case the novel became an immediate bestseller, even without the Goncourt imprimatur, while publishers and littérateurs savaged each other with a spite and gusto that would have made the appalling Goncourt brothers themselves feel thoroughly at home. All this quasi-literary passion is peculiarly Parisian and it makes it hard to read and assess the novel on its own merits.
Madame Rosa, the book's heroine, is a retired prostitute in her late sixties…. When the...
[The entire page is 484 words long]
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