There is Jeremiah, movie mogul, obese and depressed, who introduces him to the underground art world. Nele, a German student, an elusive “mermaid” who would for a time become her muse.
Above all, Jonas tries to forget: Mah, his mythomaniac and jealous love, who remained in Berlin; and finally Paula, this aunt who lives in New York and whom he refuses to see, so much he tries to escape his story; a complex and terrible family story, which would nevertheless make an ideal subject for a film …
To the severity of The Bastard Factory (trans. Rose Labourie) succeed the lightness and unbridled fantasy of Fuck or make movies. A powerful and funny novel, told in the form of a posthumous diary, in which Chris Kraus continues his exploration of these families haunted by Nazi ghosts. All against a background of homage to the cinema and to the artistic and literary scene of the 1990s.
Here is an excerpt, in preview:
Chris Kraus was born in 1963 in Gottingen, Germany. He began a career as a journalist and illustrator before studying at the German Academy of Film and Television in Berlin. He is the author of several films, which have won him numerous awards. His work Four minutes (2006) achieved great critical and commercial success in France, and has been adapted for the theater. He also realized The flowers of yesterday (2016), with Adèle Haenel in the lead role.
Chris Kraus is the author of four novels. After The Bastard Factory (Belfond, 2019; 10/18, 2020), selected for the Femina prize and the prize for the best foreign book, Fuck or make movies is his second novel to appear in France. He lives in Berlin.
[à paraître] Fuck or make movies – Chris Kraus, trad. Rose Labourie – Belfond – 9782714482044 – € 22.50
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