Literature or Life
ABOUT
THE BOOK
‘What’s essential’, I tell Lieutenant Rosenfeld, ‘is the experience of Evil. Of course, you can experience that anywhere…You don’t need concentration camps to know Evil. But here, this experience will turn out to have been crucial, and massive, invading everywhere … it’s the experience of radical Evil’. Jorge Semprun was twenty years old when arrested for activities with the French Resistance. He was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp. Literature or Life is a deeply personal account not only of his time at the camp, but also of the years before and after, of his painful attempts to write this book. Literature or Life is a narrative that draws on the author’s experience, but extends beyond that experience into the realms of fiction and imagination. Jorge Semprun was born in Madrid in 1923. He is both a novelist and a screenwriter and served as Spain’s Minister for Culture from 1988 to 1991. He lives in Paris.
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Linda
Coverdale
Linda Coverdale is a literary translator from French. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, and has a Ph.D in French Literature. She has translated into English more than 60 works by such authors as Roland Barthes, Emmanuel Carrère, Patrick Chamoiseau, Maryse Condé, Marie Darrieussecq, Jean Echenoz, Annie Ernaux, Sébastien Japrisot, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Philippe Labro, Yann Queffélec, Jorge Semprún, Lyonel Trouillot, Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Jean Hartzfeld, Sylvain Tesson and Marguerite Duras.
Linda Coverdale is a literary translator from French. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, and has a Ph.D in French Literature. She has translated into English more than 60 works by such authors as Roland Barthes, Emmanuel Carrère, Patrick Chamoiseau, Maryse Condé, Marie Darrieussecq, Jean Echenoz, Annie Ernaux, Sébastien Japrisot, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Philippe Labro, Yann Queffélec, Jorge Semprún, Lyonel Trouillot, Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Jean Hartzfeld, Sylvain Tesson and Marguerite Duras.