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Portrait of the Writer as a Domesticated AnimalAuthor: Lydie Salvayre Translator: William Pedersen French Literature Series February 2010 190 pages, Dimensions: 5.5 x 8 Paperback, 9781564785572 Retail Paperback Price: Our Paperback Price: $11.16 
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Book Description
In Portrait of the Writer as a Domesticated Animal, the narrator accepts a job writing a laudatory authorized biography of a fast-food magnate, whose egotism borders on megalomania. She thus enters a world of call girls, celebrities, investment portfolios, and bitter rivalries, where the desire to dominate others motivates every decision. Quickly seduced, she takes to all the silver platters and evenings spent chatting with Robert De Niro—until her cold-hearted, brutish boss receives an unexpected visit from his mother, who upends his faith in the corporate world, threatening to destroy both his opulent lifestyle and his sanity. A trenchant satire of greed and self-interest—in idealists and tycoons both—Lydie Salvayre’s latest novel proves her once again to be France’s funniest and most insightful critic of modern life. Portrait was a finalist for the Prix Goncourt, France’s highest literary award.
This forthcoming title is available for preorder
About the Author
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Lydie Salvayre, daughter of refugees from the Spanish Civil War, grew up in the south of France, where she received a degree in psychiatry. In her mid-forties she published her first novel, The Declaration. She has since published nine other books, including Everyday Life and The Power of Flies, and has received numerous awards, including the Prix Hermes and the Prix Novembre. |
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About the Translator
| William Pedersen has lived abroad in France and Quebec City, and currently teaches French courses at the University of Illinois. |
Praise
“Never a false note . . . One of France’s most virtuosic novelists.”—Publishers Weekly“There are innocuous books that charm you, gently surprise you at moments you didn’t expect, blissfully put you to sleep, make you dream of princes and princesses . . . But there are others, like Lydie Salvayre’s novels, that make you sit up and take notice, that directly confront you, that shake you up from the very first sentence, warning you that the test is going to be brutal, the dream is going to be dark, and the princess’s smile is going to be painful.”—Le Monde
More Information
Also by Lydie Salvayre:Everyday Life
The Company of Ghosts
The Lecture
The Power of Flies