Jonathan Littell

a novel

The kindly ones

War stories. Dr Max Aue is a family man and owner of a lace factory in post-war France. He is an intellectual steeped in philosophy, literature, and classical music. He is also a former SS intelligence officer and cold-blooded assassin. He was an observer and then a participa nt in Nazi atrocities on the Eastern Front, he was present at the siege of Stalingrad, at the death camps, and finally caught up in the overthrow of the Nazis and the nightmarish fall of Berlin. His world was peopled by Eichmann, Himmler, G ring, Speer and, of course, Hitler himself. Max is looking back at his life with cool-eyed precision; he is speaking out now to set the record straight.

The Kindly Ones

romance

As benevolentes

«Questo è un documento, non un testo rielaborato. È la trascrizione, piú fedele possibile, di due taccuini di appunti che ho preso durante un viaggio clandestino in Siria, nel gennaio di quest'anno. Inizialmente dovevano servire come base per gli articoli che ho scritto al ritorno. Ma a poco a poco, nei lunghi periodi di attesa o di inattività, nei tempi morti creati dalla traduzione durante le conversazioni, e a causa di una certa frenesia che tende a voler trasformare subito il vissuto in scrittura, quegli appunti si sono dilatati. È ciò che rende possibile la loro pubblicazione. A giustificarla, invece, è ben altro: sono il rendiconto di un momento breve e già scomparso, quasi senza testimoni esterni, degli ultimi giorni della rivolta di una parte della città di Homs contro il regime di Bashar al-Assad, poco prima che fosse soffocata in un bagno di sangue, ancora in corso mentre sto scrivendo». Jonathan Littell, Taccuino siriano

Taccuino siriano

Les Bienveillantes

In Stücken

In the Paris of the future, a group of punk outlaws run riot. One of the gang rebels against the punks' newest fetish of cannibalism and becomes involved in an adventure with a computer network situated inside a stolen necklace.

Bad Voltage

Une vieille histoire

O franco-americano Jonathan Littell, autor do premiado romance As benevolentes, sucesso de crítica e público, foi à Síria clandestinamente com a intenção de acompanhar de perto a guerra civil, no crucial período do início de 2012. Originalmente publicado no Le Monde como uma série de reportagens, os textos reunidos em "Diários da Síria" foram compilados por Jonathan Littell enquanto ele acompanhava o conflito entre os rebeldes contrários à Bashar al-Assad e o governo, na cidade de Homs, entre janeiro e fevereiro. Durante o período, quando a atividade jornalística de estrangeiros já havia sido proibida, Littell recebeu auxílio de combatentes do "Exército Livre", como é chamada a organização armada de oposição no país, e de civis. Em seus diários, ele conta com detalhes o conflito bélico em Homs, presenciando a morte de cidadãos e combatentes de ambos os lados.

Diários da Síria

Geheime gedachten van de schrijver naar aanleiding van een sorbet.

Récit sur rien

Im Februar 2008 erschien im Berlin Verlag der Roman, den Jorge Semprun als "das Ereignis unserer Jahrhunderthälfte " bezeichnet: Die Wohlgesinnten von Jonathan Littell. Über Monate hielt er die deutsche Literaturkritik in Atem. Mit den fiktiven Lebenserinnerungen des SS-Obersturmführers Maximilian Aue, Jahrgang 1913, Sohn eines deutschen Vaters und einer französischen Mutter, zeichnet Jonathan Littell ein erschreckend detailgenaues Bild des Zweiten Weltkriegs und der Verfolgung und Vernichtung der Juden durch die Nationalsozialisten aus Sicht eines Täters. "Das ist ein Roman, und das ist ein Autor, vor denen man sich verneigen muss", schrieb Andreas Isenschmid in der NZZ am Sonntag. Die Wohlgesinnten erscheint im Oktober 2009 im Berliner Taschenbuch Verlag.

Die Wohlgesinnten

De velvillige

Jonathan Littell verbleef tweeënhalve maand in Homs, in het bonkende hart van de wijken die in opstand zijn gekomen tegen het regime van Bachar al-Assad. Dit is men voelt het op elke pagina een tekst die geschreven is onder extreem gevaarlijke omstandigheden. Deze notities, die als geheel een uniek document vormen en het resultaat zijn van waarheidsgetrouw onderzoek ter plaatse, getuigen direct van de toestand van een bevolking in opstand en haar verzet tegen de strijdkrachten van de regering.

Berichten uit Homs

Il racconto dei giorni trascorsi dall'autore delle Benevole tra il Caucaso e Mosca traccia un quadro obiettivo della Cecenia di Ramzan Kadyrov - l'uomo forte voluto da Putin - e ci offre un'immagine assai diversa da quella ufficiale. Un viaggio al termine della notte, spaventoso e lucido, in un paese in cui la corruzione, l'islamizzazione forzata e l'omicidio mirato sono l'orizzonte di un quotidiano terrore.

Cecenia, anno III

Fictional memoir of Dr. Max Aue, a former Nazi officer who survived the war and has reinvented himself, many years later, as a middle-class entrepreneur and family man in northern France. Max is an intellectual steeped in philosophy, literature, and classical music. He is also a cold-blooded assassin and the consummate bureaucrat. Through the eyes of this cultivated yet monstrous man, we experience the horrors of the Second World War and the Nazi genocide of the Jews in graphic, disturbingly precise detail from the dark and disturbing point of view of the executioner rather than the victim. During the period from June 1941 through April 1945, Max is posted to Poland, the Ukraine, and the Caucasus; he is present at the Battle of Stalingrad, at Auschwitz and Cracow; he visits occupied Paris and lives through the chaos of the final days of the Nazi regime in Berlin. Although Max is a totally imagined character, his world is peopled by real historical figures, such as Eichmann, Himmler, Goring, Speer, Heydrich, Hoss, and Hitler himself.

A Novel

Jonathan Littell war schon in den beiden Tschetschenienkriegen 1996 und 1999 für eine Menschenrechtsorganisation in Tschetschenien tätig. Seitdem gilt er als gut informierter und scharfsinniger Kenner des Landes. In diesem Frühjahr 2009 hat er erneut diese Region bereist - entstanden ist eine ebenso beeindruckende wie beängstigende Reportage über die Entwicklung, die das Land seit Kriegsende und dem Regierungsantritt Ramzan Kadryrows im Jahre 2007 genommen hat.

Tschetschenien, Jahr III

John Stewart

"Le premier mot qui me vient à l'esprit en regardant les images de John Stewart est un beau mot anglais : stillness. Le dictionnaire donne "immobilité", mais ce n'est pas ça, ni "tranquillité" ou "calme". Dans cette stillness il y a du temps en tension, une vibration contenue ; le silence, assourdissant, est celui qui suit une déflagration. D'où vient cette stillness, de quoi est-elle faite ?" Jonathan Littell. Monographie présentant le travail en noir et blans du photographe John Stewart. Les thématiques sont : les draperies, les fleurs, les portraits, les nus, les entropies et les natures mortes.

A Reader's Introduction to the Kindly Ones

A critical biography of Belgium's highest-ranking Nazi collaborator, Léon Degrelle, who fought with the Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front during the Second World War and served as inspiration for the protagonist of Jonathan Littell's bestselling, Prix Goncourt-winning novel The Kindly Ones ([Gallimard 2006] HarperCollins 2009). Originally published in French as Le sec et l'humide: Une brève incursion en territoire fasciste (Gallimard 2008) and translated into Spanish, German, Italian, Dutch, Czech, Catalan, and now English, The Damp and the Dry is a critical case study of a fascist true believer who was supported by both Hitler and Mussolini during the Second World War and later sheltered by Franco in Spain. Littell pays close attention to Degrelle's autobiographical writings, especially his account of fighting on the Eastern Front, The Russian Campaign, and uncovers an "anatomy of fascist discourse," developing on the theories of German sociologist Klaus Theweleit, whose Afterword follows the text.

A Brief Incursion Into Fascist Territory

The Damp and the Dry

"Jonathan Littell's Triptych offers in-depth insight into the life of one of the most prominent painters of the 20th Century. Although not an art critic by profession, Littell - who has written on the wars in the former Yugoslavia and Chechnya - is perhaps the only writer who could fully capture the essence of Francis Bacon's unsettling images. Littell's work - which draws directly from Bacon's images - teaches us how to "read painting"; to understand the grammar and syntax of the artist's very particular language. Littell attempts to penetrate the surface of the canvas, asking what the painting says to us, showing us how we can communicate with art. He urges us not to "begrudge the time for scrutinizing them, whether we are alone in a gallery or amidst a crowd of visitors stuck to their headphones, sitting in front of reproductions in a catalogue or viewing them on a computer screen; pushing us to look at them further, before returning to them - as little by little we begin to understand what the painting is thinking". When it comes to depicting the human form, Littell considers Bacon to be the greatest master since Rembrandt. Bacon tried to convey the hidden sensations of the human body - including his own - and it is because of this, that his paintings reveal a very intimate portrait of the artist. It is the naked truths of the painter being expressed on canvas. Bacon felt that painting should be real and vivid, that a painter "should not illustrate reality" but "create images that are a concentration of reality and the realisation of sensual experience". Jonathan Littell (born in 1967) is a bilingual (English/French) American writer. In 2006, he was awarded Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française and the Prix Goncourt for his historical novel on World War II 'Les Bienveillantes'. Between 1994 and 2001, he worked for a number of international humanitarian organizations, including those in former Yugoslavia, Chechnya and Moscow. He wrote 'Tchétchénie, An III' after his second trip to Chechnya in 2009." - - from Publisher's website.

Jonathan Littell

About

Books

Join the club