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IT IS Paris in the 1950s and semi-destitute university student Daniel Brodin, a self-styled poet, is being chased down the street by the owner of the legendary Minotaure bookshop.
Brodin had nicked a book and this time managed to escape by hiding in Cafe Serbier, a hotbed of literary confrontations where a poetry reading is on. Invited to chip in, he recites — as if it were his his own work — a poem from an Italian anthology of mad poets.
The gathering is stunned and the deception makes him a celebrity.
But one day his book-thieving luck fails and after he’s let go by the bookshop owner, he meets an anarchist couple on the banks of Seine who invite him to share a bottle of wine. This act of solidarity triggers a kaleidoscopic chain of events around the streets, bistros and cafes of bohemian Paris.
Communists march against Nato commander Matthew Ridgway — who in Korea gives orders “of the kind for which the German generals are sitting in prison” — existentialists of the Jean-Paul Sartre variety confront everybody, writer Jean Genet gets knocked down in a bar brawl, publisher Gaston Gallimard pontificates and unsavoury personages from the Parisian underworld rub shoulders with the various intellectual cliques.
Hectolitres of wine are imbibed in this merry-go-round by all concerned.
Writer Alessandro Tota narrates the story in six edge-of-the-seat chapters in what’s a true Situationist crawl through a Paris brimming with intellectual ferment, political activism and the personal dilemmas of Brodin. Now “Klepto” to his mates, he ends up participating in a daring burglary that ends in an accidental killing.
Laced with perceptive and warm humour, Diary of a Book Thief is thrillingly drawn by Pierre Van Hove, with the occasional subtle reference to Van Gogh, Utrillo, Degas and Lautrec.
A singular success.
Memoirs of a Book Thief is published by SelfMade Hero, price £14.99.