Читать книгу Slaves to Fortune - Tom Lanoye - Страница 5

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AUTHOR

‘I wanted to write a novel which struck a balance between Albert Camus and Quentin Tarantino. Between classic European existentialism and a typical American-thriller exploitation—between merciless analysis and merciless fun.

These two extremes led me inevitably to a duo of protagonists: Tony and Tony. They would have to have the same name and the same appearance, but beyond that they should have little in common. Except for one thing: each of them needs the other to redeem himself, and at the same time both realize they will have to betray the other for their own redemption. In this way you automatically end up with a literary rock-’n’-roll version of the age-old doppelganger motif.

From the start, I had one more clear principle: the book had to take place on many continents, but never in Europe, though Tony and Tony are inhabitants of Europe through and through. I wanted them to find themselves lost in a world that has become too vast for its inhabitants and in which the Old Continent has henceforth become as peripheral as its many colonies of times past.

The fragmentation of Tony and Tony needed to embody the fragmentation of all contemporary global citizens—but first and foremost that of the once so proud and now completely confused European.’

TRANSLATOR

‘Flemish is a pyrotechnic version of the Dutch language so I shed many tears trying to replicate Tom Lanoye’s linguistic brilliance. Luckily my bouts of sobbing were interspersed with hoots of laughter because he is a great comic writer too.’