Nouvelles anglaises contemporaines : Contemporary English Stories

by Martin Amis, Christine Jordis (Préface), Graham Swift

Satire, provocation et humour noir caractérisent les trois nouvelles de ce recueil où Martin Amis, surnommé «l'enfant terrible des lettres anglaises», côtoie Ian McEwan et Graham Swift. Sans concessions, ils révèlent au grand jour les pires travers de leurs contemporains. Tous trois sont considérés comme les écrivains britanniques les plus doués de leur génération et ont été couronnés par de nombreux prix.

Bilingual edition

176 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published February 14, 2006

About the author

Martin Amis was an English novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His works included the novels Money, London Fields and The Information.

The Guardian writes that "all his critics have noted what Kingsley Amis [his father] complained of as a 'terrible compulsive vividness in his style... that constant demonstrating of his command of English'; and it's true that the Amis-ness of Amis will be recognisable in any piece before he reaches his first full stop."

Amis's raw material is what he sees as the absurdity of the postmodern condition with its grotesque caricatures. He has thus sometimes been portrayed as the undisputed master of what the New York Times has called "the new unpleasantness."

Reviews

[Gillian · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Liked' is perhaps not the right description for these three short, unsettling stories from Martin Amis, Graham Swift and Ian McEwan but certainly the two star "OK" would be insufficient. All three have at their heart failed, or failing, marriages and the disastrous effect on the characters.

Not a cheery read and the translation from English to French was at times unsatisfactory to express the exact tone of the original.