Description
Half love, half about love. This, in short, might define Dan Lungu's new novel.
Andi and Marga are a young couple who hook up in odd circumstances and live together for one and a half years. They both work for the same provincial newspaper. She writes for the gossip page; he is an investigative journalist. Although things between them seem in order, one fine day Marga vanishes, leaving behind a cryptic farewell note. In the absence of any rational explanation, Andi, confused and consumed by questions, musters an entire arsenal of stratagems for forgetting. His life is further complicated by an encounter with a group of evangelical Protestants and by the feeling that God is on his trail. Things go from bad to good, but the ending of the tale is not necessarily a happy one, rather it is merely different. Of course, caustic observation, (self-)irony and humour are part of the mix. Disturbing and amusing, simmering with existential disquietude and scarred by damaged psyches, How to Forget a Woman is a book about overcoming misanthropy and re-conquering innocence, about tolerance...
Andi and Marga are a young couple who hook up in odd circumstances and live together for one and a half years. They both work for the same provincial newspaper. She writes for the gossip page; he is an investigative journalist. Although things between them seem in order, one fine day Marga vanishes, leaving behind a cryptic farewell note. In the absence of any rational explanation, Andi, confused and consumed by questions, musters an entire arsenal of stratagems for forgetting. His life is further complicated by an encounter with a group of evangelical Protestants and by the feeling that God is on his trail. Things go from bad to good, but the ending of the tale is not necessarily a happy one, rather it is merely different. Of course, caustic observation, (self-)irony and humour are part of the mix. Disturbing and amusing, simmering with existential disquietude and scarred by damaged psyches, How to Forget a Woman is a book about overcoming misanthropy and re-conquering innocence, about tolerance...
Reviews / Votes
"How to Forget a Woman is with certainty already a media star and may also become a bestseller or the starting point for a successful screenplay." -Mihaela URSA"No one will learn how to forget a woman by reading this book, but the reader might learn many things about how to write prose. A novel that is all the more surprising for being very simple. All the levers of the complex narrative structure are excellently camouflaged. And Marga is a genuine lesson on how a character can shine in her own absence. She made me recall, not only because of her name, Cortazar's Maga, that enigma of Hopscotch." -Bogdan Alexandru STANESCU
"Like all Dan Lungu's books, the novel How to Forget a Woman is a book you can't put down, from the first page to the last. It is a novel which will certainly not disappoint the ever more numerous fans of Dan Lungu's writing." -Tudorel URIAN
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Normal, IL
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 215 mm
Width: 139 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-62897-343-3 (9781628973433)
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
Persons
Dan Lungu is one of the most important Romanian novelists to have emerged in the post-communist period. His award-winning novels, which include Hens' Heaven, I'm an Old Commie! (Dalkey Archive Press, 2017), In Hell All the Light Bulbs are Burnt Out, and The Little Girl Who Played at Being God, have been translated into almost every European language, as well as having been made into feature films and adapted for the stage. Alistair Ian Blyth, a native of Sunderland, England, has resided for many years in Bucharest. His previous translations include The Bulgarian Truck by Dumitru Tsepenaeg, The Encounter by Gabriela Adamesteanu, and I'm an Old Commie! by Dan Lungu, all available from Dalkey Archive Press.