The Deserters

‘An engrossing study of the struggle to recover one’s humanity in the aftermath of extreme violence. Told through interwoven narratives, the novel plays artfully with time and space, gently zeroing in on its central themes and spanning a wide range of human experience. The Deserters is immediately reminiscent of Coetzee: it is sparse, intelligent and hungry for the big moral questions.’ — Arianne Shahvisi, author of Arguing for a Better World ‘Mathias Enard is one of the best contemporary French writers, and his works – ambitious, erudite, multifaceted, surprising and unconventional – are always worth reading, because they always strike a perfect balance between the best that literature can offer: pleasure and knowledge.’ — Javier Cercas, author of The Impostor ‘Every novel by Mathias Enard reminds me of the reasons why I read fiction. He is ambitious, erudite, full of life, and a wonderful stylist to boot. He is one of the great novelists of our time.’ — Juan Gabriel Vásquez, author of The Shape of the Ruins ‘All of Enard’s books share the hope of transposing prose into the empyrean of pure sound, where words can never correspond to stable meanings. He’s the composer of a discomposing age.’ — Joshua Cohen, New York Times ‘A novelist like Enard feels particularly necessary right now, though to say this may actually be to undersell his work. He is not a polemicist but an artist, one whose novels will always have something to say to us.’ — Christopher Beha, Harper’s ‘The most brazenly lapel-grabbing French writer since Michel Houellebecq.’ — Leo Robson, New Statesman