A young Paris researcher decides to lead a less risky, more abstract life by staying in his bathroom, but an invitation to the Austrian embassy tempts him to face the unexpected

The Bathroom

Literature & Fiction

Jean-Philippe Toussaint

Humor & Satire

Plume

The amusingly odd protagonist and narrator of Jean-Philippe Toussaint's novel is an academic on sabbatical in Berlin to work on his book about Titian. With his research completed, all he has left to do is sit down and write. Unfortunately, he can't decide how to refer to his subject Titian, le Titien, Vecellio, Titian Vecellio so instead he starts watching TV continuously, until one day he decides to renounce the most addictive of twentieth-century inventions. As he spends his summer still not writing his book, he is haunted by television, from the video surveillance screens in a museum to a moment when it seems everyone in Berlin is tuned in to Baywatch. One of Toussaint's funniest antiheroes, the protagonist of Television turns daily occurrences into an entertaining reflection on society and the influence of television on our lives.

Television

Literary

Dalkey Archive Press

Self-Portrait Abroad

Deep Vellum Publishing

L'Appreil Photo

Arts & Photography

Photography & Video

MINUIT

Moving through a variety of locales and adventures, The Truth about Marie revisits the unnamed narrator of Toussaint’s acclaimed Running Away, reporting onhis now disintegrated relationship with the titular Marie—the story switchingdeftly between first- and third-person as the narrator continues to drift throughlife, and Marie does her best to get on with hers. Like all of Toussaint’s novels,The Truth about Marie ’s plot matters far less than its pace and tempo, its chainof images, its sequence of events. From pouring rain in Paris to blazing fires onthe island of Elba, from moments of intense action to perfectly paced lulls, TheTruth about Marie relies on a series of contrasts to tell a beguiling, and finallytouching, story of intimacy forever being regained and lost.

Die Wahrheit uber Marie

Verlagsgruppe Random House GmbH

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Books by Jean-Philippe Toussaint