All Men Want to Know
'Intense, gorgeous, troubling, seductive' SARAH WATERS
Published on 6. August 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
192 pages
978-0-241-44772-7 (ISBN)
Description
'Intense, gorgeous, troubling, seductive - a novel that has to be surrendered to rather than read' Sarah Waters
AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
WINNER OF AN ENGLISH PEN TRANSLATES AWARD
All Men Want to Know traces Nina Bouraoui's blissful childhood in Algeria, a wild, sun-soaked paradise, with hazy summer afternoons spent swimming, diving, and driving across the desert. Her mother is French, her father Algerian; when racial tensions begin to surface in their neighbourhood, her mother suffers an unspeakable act of violence that forces the family to flee the country.
In Paris, eighteen-year-old Nina lives alone. It's the 1980s. Four nights a week she makes her way to The Kat, a legendary gay nightclub, where she watches women from the sidelines, afraid of her own desires, her sudden and intoxicating freedom. In her solitude, she starts to write - and finds herself writing about her mother.
All Men Want to Know is a haunting, lyrical international bestseller about mothers and daughters, about shame and sexuality, about existing between two cultures and belonging to neither. A phenomenon in France, this is a defining portrait of womanhood from one of Europe's greatest living writers.
'Blown away by the power and lyricism of All Men Want to Know. What a book. Read it' Niven Govinden, author of THIS BRUTAL HOUSE
'Intense yet gorgeous and deeply moving, All Men Want to Know is a defining portrait of womanhood that grips at the heart of the immigrant experience, about existing between two cultures yet belonging to neither' Dazed
'It's easy to see why this novel dominated the bestseller charts for so long in France' Monocle
AN INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
WINNER OF AN ENGLISH PEN TRANSLATES AWARD
All Men Want to Know traces Nina Bouraoui's blissful childhood in Algeria, a wild, sun-soaked paradise, with hazy summer afternoons spent swimming, diving, and driving across the desert. Her mother is French, her father Algerian; when racial tensions begin to surface in their neighbourhood, her mother suffers an unspeakable act of violence that forces the family to flee the country.
In Paris, eighteen-year-old Nina lives alone. It's the 1980s. Four nights a week she makes her way to The Kat, a legendary gay nightclub, where she watches women from the sidelines, afraid of her own desires, her sudden and intoxicating freedom. In her solitude, she starts to write - and finds herself writing about her mother.
All Men Want to Know is a haunting, lyrical international bestseller about mothers and daughters, about shame and sexuality, about existing between two cultures and belonging to neither. A phenomenon in France, this is a defining portrait of womanhood from one of Europe's greatest living writers.
'Blown away by the power and lyricism of All Men Want to Know. What a book. Read it' Niven Govinden, author of THIS BRUTAL HOUSE
'Intense yet gorgeous and deeply moving, All Men Want to Know is a defining portrait of womanhood that grips at the heart of the immigrant experience, about existing between two cultures yet belonging to neither' Dazed
'It's easy to see why this novel dominated the bestseller charts for so long in France' Monocle
Reviews / Votes
Magnificent... a captivating autobiographical novel * Elle * A vital book for our times... Nina's story will touch any reader who has ever felt lost or out of place, or who has ever yearned to love and be loved * European Literature Network * Haunting, spell-binding, luminous * Lire * Intense, gorgeous, troubling, seductive - a novel that has to be surrendered to rather than read -- Sarah Waters, Booker-shortlisted author of Fingersmith, The Night Watch and The Little Stranger A tour de force * Le Figaro * An incandescent writer * Les Echos * The brilliant thing about this book is that it makes reading autobiographies chic. Bouraoui's unflinching depiction of her life, told in a detached, measured tone, catches one unawares. Her descriptions, although witty, are also unmistakably sad. Her love for all that is womanhood is heart-warming. * Irish Times * It's easy to see why this novel dominated the bestseller charts for so long in France * Monocle * Blown away by the power and lyricism of All Men Want to Know. It's a resolutely queer novel of female sexual identity, of remembering and becoming, trauma, mothers and daughters, colonialism, and finding a way through. What a book. Read it. -- Niven Govinden, author of THIS BRUTAL HOUSE A deeply personal exploration of cultural and personal identity, sexuality and belonging. Raw and sensual, readers will be enraptured by the narrator's intense evocations of guilt, desire and longing * Scotsman * Intense yet gorgeous and deeply moving, All Men Want to Know is a defining portrait of womanhood that grips at the heart of the immigrant experience, about existing between two cultures yet belonging to neither * Dazed *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 135 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
194 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-44772-7 (9780241447727)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
08/2020
1st Edition
Viking
€8.99
Available for download
Persons
Nina Bouraoui (Author)
Nina Bouraoui was born in 1967 to a French mother and an Algerian father. She lived in Algiers until the age of fourteen before moving to France and becoming a writer. She is one of France's most renowned living novelists, and has won several prestigious literary prizes, including the Prix Emmanuel Robles, the Prix du Livre Inter and the Prix Renaudot, and she was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Her novels have been translated into over 15 languages.
Aneesa Abbas Higgins (Translator)
Aneesa Abbas Higgins is an award-winning translator. Her most recent translation is Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin. She lives in London.
Nina Bouraoui was born in 1967 to a French mother and an Algerian father. She lived in Algiers until the age of fourteen before moving to France and becoming a writer. She is one of France's most renowned living novelists, and has won several prestigious literary prizes, including the Prix Emmanuel Robles, the Prix du Livre Inter and the Prix Renaudot, and she was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Her novels have been translated into over 15 languages.
Aneesa Abbas Higgins (Translator)
Aneesa Abbas Higgins is an award-winning translator. Her most recent translation is Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin. She lives in London.