This small masterpiece by Nobel prize-winner, Modiano, has been translated exquisitely into English from its original French. In laconic, speech-inflected prose, captured perfectly by John Cullen, a man who calls himself Victor recalls his youth at the outbreak of the Algerian war of independence; at 18, he flees Paris for a town where he befriends an enigmatic doctor, an actor and her depressed great dane. His summer with them is carefree and full of debaucheries, and is lived in wilful ignorance of reality; the stirrings of war in Algeria seem distant. Time for the three friends “stands still”; they move at “snail’s pace”, “lazy. Like Algae.” Occasionally, however, an undercurrent of anxiety reveals itself. In these moments, the characters – outwardly confident – seem fragile and vulnerable and the war, especially for Victor who it is suggested is an Algerian Jew, feels disconcertingly close. This great novel is infused with nostalgia for a lost time, place and people so intimately described that Victor’s memories begin to feel like our own.
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• This article was amended on 1 October 2016 to correct a factual error. An earlier version stated that this was the book’s first translation into English.
