Hubert Mingarelli’s short, beautiful novel about friendship and the fragments of happiness that illuminate the darkness
The 7th Function of Language
Written by Laurent Binet
Translated by Sam Taylor
- Original language:
- French
- Longlisted
- The Man Booker International Prize 2018
- Published by Harvill Secker
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Laurent Binet’s comic secret history of the French intelligentsia is both a wild send-up and an exuberant celebration of French intellectual tradition
Roland Barthes is knocked down in a Paris street by a laundry van. It’s February 1980 and he has just come from lunch with politician François Mitterrand. Barthes dies soon afterwards. History tells us it was an accident. But what if it were an assassination? What if Barthes was carrying a document of unbelievable, global importance? A document explaining the seventh function of language - an idea so powerful that whoever masters it is able to convince anyone, in any situation, to do anything.
Other nominated books by Sam Taylor
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