The Book of Nights marks the American debut of one of Europe's most powerful and celebrated young writers. Winner of six literary prizes, The Book of Nights combines the timeless power of medieval legend, the resonance of Greek tragedy, and the harsh immediacy of a newsreel. Sylvie Germain traces a century in the life of the Peniel family, and especially of the Victor-Flandrin Peniel (nicknamed Night-of-gold-Wolf-face because of the hereditary gold fleck in the eye). It is Victor-Flandrin-larger than life yet fully human-who acts as focal point for the intertwined stories of the Peniels (including Victor's four wives and fifteen children); of their lovers and enemies; and of the endless cycle of birth and death, triumph and loss, madness and passion, eroticism and holocaust-from the Franco-Prussian War to World War II-that envelops and buffets their lives. Blending the historical with the supernatural, the comic with the grotesque, the lyrical and the brutal, Sylvie Germain tells the story of humanity's strivings and vanity, of the profound injustices that govern our relations, and of the fundamental strength that allows us ultimately to triumph over carnage and degradation. The Book of Nights is a "powerfully, deeply felt, imaginative" book (The Times Literary Supplement) by a fresh and compelling new voice.

Book of Nights (Verba Mundi Series)

Literature & Fiction

Germain, Sylvie

Contemporary

Verba Mundi

The sequel to Sylvie Germain's highly acclaimed The Book of Nights (Godine, 1993; a New York Times Notable Book of the Year), Night of Amber continues the grotesque, fantastic, and riveting story of the Peniel family. It ranges from the terror and atrocity of the Algerian War to the frenzied Paris of May '68. Like The Book of Nights, which it brings to a dramatic conclusion, this is "an unusual and passionate" novel (Times Literary Supplement) that skillfully blends myth, history, memorable characters, and pure emotional intensity.The hero of the novel is Charles-Victor Peniel, called "Night-of-Amber," whose lonely and angry childhood eventually lands him in Paris at the time of the May '68 riots. There, Charles-Victor becomes involved with a band of dangerous companions, and in a whirlwind situation that spins uncontrollably into sadism and murder. (Verba Mundi)

Night of Amber (Verba Mundi)

THE BOOK OF NIGHTS (DEDALUS EUROPE 1992)

Literary

David R. Godine

When tragedy strikes and Theodore Lebon is robbed of his adored wife, or rather her head, for only her body remains after a riding accident, the reader is once again in that strange world that Sylvie Germain has made her own

BOOK OF TOBIAS (Dedalus Europe 2000 S)

Arts & Photography

Dedalus Limited

Deep in the forests of Moran, far from civilization, live families of woodcutters and shepherds. A remote and beautiful world, it is a place where madness still reigns, murder occurs, and bloody punishments are delivered. What has happened to the body of the sensual and beautiful Catherine Corvol, wife of a rich landowner, killed not out of hatred but an excess of love? Around this central enigma, Germain has created a gothic enchantment, a dazzling rural fantasy rich in angels, obsession, and revenge where the reader is carried forward as much by the lyricism and strangeness of the language as by the macabre and fantastic turns of the plot.

Days of Anger (Dedalus Europe 1992-95)

Dedalus, Ltd

Ludvik is a man who has touched bottom. Eleven years ago he left his country appalled by the poisonous spiritual and moral bankruptcy of East European communism. Now he is back. Not because the situation has improved-the post-communist era has brought its own brand of cynicism and soullessness-but because he has been rejected by the woman he loved and, like a wounded animal seeking refuge, he has come home. But home is a bleak and comfortless place where the heart is broken and the lover has lost all capacity. Yet even when all seems hopeless, small miracles do occur, and salvation comes from the most unlikely quarters. In Invitation to a Journey, Sylvie Germain guides us with her illuminated prose through deserts of despair and the dark shades of night, and brings us unerringly to the threshold of a new and joyous day.

Invitation to a Journey

As a man searching for his own identity, Magnus discovers that his life resembles a painting by Otto Dix, George Grosz or Edward Munch, rather than the romantic tale of family heroism and self-sacrifice on which he was nurtured by the woman he took to be his mother.

MAGNUS

"An intricate, finely crafted and polished tale, The Weeping Woman brings magic-realism to the dimly lit streets of Prague. Through the squares and alleys a woman walks, the embodiment of human pity, sorrow, death. Everyone she passes is touched by her, and Germain skilfully creates an intense mood and feel in her attempt to produce a spiritual map of Prague." The Observer The figure of this bereft woman develops into a memorable symbol: her sudden appearances - on a bridge,in a square, in a room - haunt the book like history, moved to tears." Robert Winder in The Independent "a haunting classic" Madeleine Kingsley in She Magazine

Prague Noir: The Weeping Woman on the Streets of Prague (City Noir)

We experience one hundred years of French history, and three Franco-Prussian conflicts through the lives of the Peniel family. Sylvie Germain creates a magically bizarre universe around the patriarch of the family, nicknamed Night-of-Gold-Wolf-Face and his fifteen children, each distinguished by a gold speck in their left eye. The grotesque and the bizarre are never far away in a book full of deeply moving events and great suffering. The effects of the carnage and the inhumanity of war upon this peasant family become ever more devastating, culminating in the holocaust of the Second World War. This is a novel on an epic scale, with the emotional intensity of a Greek tragedy in which life triumphs over the horrors of war and the power of death. The publication of The Book of Nights made Sylvie Germain an overnight success in France. The Book of Nights won 5 literary prizes in France and The Scott Moncrieff French Translation Prize in the UK. It has a big story on a wide canvas with unforgettable characters. It will appeal to lovers of Magic Realism and anyone who wants read something very different which will linger in the imagination long after the book has been finished. 'The novel tells the story of the Peniel family in the desolate wetlands of Flanders, across which the German invaders pour three times -1870, 1914 and 1940 - in less than a century. It is hard to avoid thinking of A Hundred Years of Solitude but the comparison does no disservice to Germain's novel, so powerful is it. A brilliant book, excellently translated.' Mike Petty in The Literary Review

Book Of Nights

Dedalus

"Sylvie Germain's The Medusa Child beautifully translated from the French by Liz Nash, tells a heartbreaking and violent story about sin and redemption in fantastical language; a myth from la France profonde." Books of the Year in The Independent on Sunday'Germain's language is redolent with decay, rich with religious torment and ecstasy, and filled with the decadence so loved by this publisher.'Time Out'The Medusa Child is her most accessible novel, and my favourite. A coherent pattern of metaphor depicts an enchanted country childhood. Lucie explores the marshes around her home and studies the stars. But when she is given a room of her own, an ogre starts to pay her nocturnal visits. Helpless and alone, Lucie decides to fight back by turning herself into a monster. This is a superb and compassionate study of damage and resistance.'Michele Roberts in Mslexia

The Medusa Child (Dedalus Europe)

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