The Shadow of Memory (Swiss Literature)

The debut novel of Bernard Comment, acclaimed author and editor, now available in English for the first time, The Shadow of Memory brings a fairy-tale premise into the modern world, where information—and its loss—can be a matter of life and death.

In this eerie, compelling, and playful novel, a young man tormented by his feeble memory meets an elderly man, Robert, endowed with the recall of an elephant. Soon, in exchange for becoming his live-in servant, Robert agrees to allow his young protégé to inherit his prodigious memory upon his death. While this might seem a fair if absurd exchange, Robert’s demands become progressively more macabre, until the narrator is forced to decide what he is truly willing to sacrifice for the ability to remember. The debut novel of Bernard Comment, acclaimed author and editor, now available in English for the first time, The Shadow of Memory brings a fairy-tale premise into the modern world, where information—and its loss—can be a matter of life and death.