Disturbance - by Philippe Lançon (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

WINNER PRIX FEMINA AND PRIX DU ROMAN NEWS

A 2019 BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR (Evening Standard・New Statesman ・Lit Hub)

Paris, January 7, 2015. Two terrorists who claim allegiance to ISIS attack the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. The event causes untold pain to the victims and their families, prompts a global solidarity movement, and ignites a fierce debate over press freedoms and the role of satire today.

Philippe Lançon, a journalist, author, and a weekly contributor to Charlie Hebdo is gravely wounded in the attack. This intense life experience upends his relationship to the world, to writing, to reading, to love and to friendship. As he attempts to reconstruct his life on the page, Lançon rereads Proust, Thomas Mann, Kafka, and others in search of guidance. It is a year before he can return to writing, a year in which he learns to work through his experiences and their aftermath.

Disturbance is not an essay on terrorism nor is it a witness's account of Charlie Hebdo. The attack and what followed are part of Lançon's narrative, which, instead, touches upon the universal. It is an honest, intimate account of a man seeking to put his life back together after it has been torn apart.

Disturbance is a book about survival, resilience, and reconstruction, about transformation, about one man's shifting relationship to time, to writing and journalism, to truth, and to his own body.

Review Quotes

"A powerful and deeply civilized memoir...I was moved and provoked by it, and I always looked forward to picking it up again." --Dwight Garner, The New York Times (A Critics' Top Book of 2020)

★ "A frank, relentless, gripping memoir that illustrates both man's inhumanity to man and how quiet resolution can reclaim and restore." --Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

★ "Clear-eyed, endlessly curious, and never sentimental." --Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

"Unrelenting, mesmerizing, and beautifully written, Disturbance is transformative." --ForeWord Reviews

"[Disturbance] is not mere reportage or political journalism but a real work of literature: a journey into individual suffering." --Literary Review

"An undeniable, absolute masterpiece." --Le Figaro Magazine

★ "Highly recommended for all audiences." --Library Journal (Starred Review)

"[Disturbance] is a fascinating and often sobering read, one that offers insight into human fragility as well as resilience." --World Literature Today

"Disturbance is an intimate odyssey steeped in collective history, a major work sure to leave a lasting impression on anyone who reads it." --France-Amérique

"Brilliantly conceived and adeptly executed...There isn't a single misstep in the book." --Ron Slate, On The Seawall

"A magnificent tribute." --The Spectator

"[Disturbance] is an argument in favour of the intellectual life, of ideas as beautiful abstractions, weaponised only as satire, never as terror."--The Guardian

"It is a remarkable account of recovery, the nature of reconstruction, and, in a way, the philosophy of return from the edge of death." --The Lancet

"A great work of literature." --Le Journal du Dimanche

"An extraordinary book." --ELLE Magazine

"An intense account." --Les Inrockuptiles

"Incredible sensitivity and humanity." --Lepoint.fr

"Remarkable." --Le Monde des Livres

About the Author

Philippe Lançon is a French journalist and writer born in 1963. His memoir, Disturbance, won the 2018 Prix Femina, Prix du Roman News, and Prix Renaudot Jury's Special Prize, and was also named Best Book of the Year by the magazines Lire and Les Inrockuptibles. He is the author of the novels L'Élan (2013) and Les îles (2011).

Steven Rendall has translated more than fifty books from French and German, two of which have won major translation prizes. He is professor emeritus of Romance Languages at the University of Oregon and editor emeritus of Comparative Literature. He currently lives in France.