2008 Longlist
Foreign Words
ABOUT
THE BOOK
Much of Alexakis’s fiction, though not strictly autobiographical, employs elements of his life to explore the relationship between identity and language, memory and the self, and exile, loss, love, and death. After the death of his father in 1995, he began learning Sango, the main language of the Central African Republic.From this autobiographical “fact” emerges a stunning work of imagination, Les mots étrangers, whose narrator also undertakes to learn Sango on the death of his father.
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Alyson
Waters
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
Words, as a way of expression of our thoughts and feelings, were and are the traditional way of the peoples’ communication, regardless of the different culture and day-to-day life.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Country
Greece
Original Language
French
Publisher
Autumn Hill Books
Translator
Alyson Waters
Nominating Library