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From the 2023 winner of the Prix Goncourt for poetry comes a debut novel unlike any other, a lyrical anti-epic about the beauty, violence, trauma, and absurdity of the internet age.
Like Beckett's novels or Kafka's stranger tales, The Endless Week is a work outside of time, as if novels had never existed and Laura Vazquez has suddenly invented them. And yet it could not be more contemporary, as startling and constantly new as the scrolling hyper-mediated reality it chronicles. Its characters are Salim, a young poet, and his sister Sara, who rarely leave home except virtually; their father, who is falling apart; and their grandmother, who is dying. To save their grandmother, Salim and Sara set out in search of their long-lost mother, accompanied by Salim's online friend Jonathan, though their real quest is through the landscape of language and suffering that saturates both the real world and the virtual. The Endless Week is sharp and ever-shifting, at turns hilarious, tender, satirical, and terrifying. Not much happens, yet every moment is compulsively engaging. It is a major work by one of the most fearlessly original writers of our time. "Like all great novels, The Endless Week is about life, time, and death . . . and like all great poets, Laura Vazquez has us encounter violence and beauty through sublime rhythms and poignant variations. She captures human tragedy in the repetition of words, driving the nail of reality deeper . . . Her characters exist powerfully, but not in a conventional way, and they are brought to life through a flux of consciousness that both animates and overwhelms them. . . . These ultra-connected people of the internet live in a bubble full of naïve questions and existential idiocy. . . . Through them, Laura Vazquez marvels at everything, forcing us to see the world anew in the place where humor meets melancholy." -Camille Laurens, Le Monde
"The language of this thirty-five-year-old poet from Marseille is so melodious, rhythmic, and visceral, that it recites itself. . . . [Her novel] is about life, death, and the space we can occupy in both the real and virtual worlds, but Laura Vazquez's words don't deserve to be flattened by such a vague and reductive summary. Her writing is all precision and breadth. . . . [H]er characters live together in the infinite space of today, on Earth and on the web." -Marine Landrot, Télérama Laura Vazquez is a leading figure in contemporary French literature, and winner of the 2023 Prix Goncourt for poetry. Her debut novel, The Endless Week, won the Prix de la Page 111 and was a finalist for the Prix Wepler, and her debut collection of poetry The Hand of the Hand, won the Prix de la Vocation. She published her first play, the lesbian tragedy Zero, in 2024. Vazquez regularly gives readings around the world in venues such as the Ming Contemporary Art Museum in Shanghai and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. She lives in Marseille, France.
Alex Niemi is a writer and award-winning literary translator. She is the recipient of an NEA fellowship, the Heldt Prize, and the AATSEEL Prize for best poetry translation from a Slavic language. Her translations include For the Shrew and Hekate by Anna Glazova, as well as The John Cage Experiences by Vincent Tholomé. She also is the author of the poetry chapbook Elephant.
Like Beckett's novels or Kafka's stranger tales, The Endless Week is a work outside of time, as if novels had never existed and Laura Vazquez has suddenly invented them. And yet it could not be more contemporary, as startling and constantly new as the scrolling hyper-mediated reality it chronicles. Its characters are Salim, a young poet, and his sister Sara, who rarely leave home except virtually; their father, who is falling apart; and their grandmother, who is dying. To save their grandmother, Salim and Sara set out in search of their long-lost mother, accompanied by Salim's online friend Jonathan, though their real quest is through the landscape of language and suffering that saturates both the real world and the virtual. The Endless Week is sharp and ever-shifting, at turns hilarious, tender, satirical, and terrifying. Not much happens, yet every moment is compulsively engaging. It is a major work by one of the most fearlessly original writers of our time. "Like all great novels, The Endless Week is about life, time, and death . . . and like all great poets, Laura Vazquez has us encounter violence and beauty through sublime rhythms and poignant variations. She captures human tragedy in the repetition of words, driving the nail of reality deeper . . . Her characters exist powerfully, but not in a conventional way, and they are brought to life through a flux of consciousness that both animates and overwhelms them. . . . These ultra-connected people of the internet live in a bubble full of naïve questions and existential idiocy. . . . Through them, Laura Vazquez marvels at everything, forcing us to see the world anew in the place where humor meets melancholy." -Camille Laurens, Le Monde
"The language of this thirty-five-year-old poet from Marseille is so melodious, rhythmic, and visceral, that it recites itself. . . . [Her novel] is about life, death, and the space we can occupy in both the real and virtual worlds, but Laura Vazquez's words don't deserve to be flattened by such a vague and reductive summary. Her writing is all precision and breadth. . . . [H]er characters live together in the infinite space of today, on Earth and on the web." -Marine Landrot, Télérama Laura Vazquez is a leading figure in contemporary French literature, and winner of the 2023 Prix Goncourt for poetry. Her debut novel, The Endless Week, won the Prix de la Page 111 and was a finalist for the Prix Wepler, and her debut collection of poetry The Hand of the Hand, won the Prix de la Vocation. She published her first play, the lesbian tragedy Zero, in 2024. Vazquez regularly gives readings around the world in venues such as the Ming Contemporary Art Museum in Shanghai and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. She lives in Marseille, France.
Alex Niemi is a writer and award-winning literary translator. She is the recipient of an NEA fellowship, the Heldt Prize, and the AATSEEL Prize for best poetry translation from a Slavic language. Her translations include For the Shrew and Hekate by Anna Glazova, as well as The John Cage Experiences by Vincent Tholomé. She also is the author of the poetry chapbook Elephant.