Last Words from Montmartre (New York Review Books Classics)

Last Words from Montmartre (New York Review Books Classics)

An NYRB Classics Original

When the pioneering Taiwanese novelist Qiu Miaojin committed suicide in 1995 at age twenty-six, she left behind her unpublished masterpiece, Last Words from Montmartre. Unfolding through a series of letters written by an unnamed narrator, Last Words tells the story of a passionate relationship between two young womenâ€”their sexual awakening, their gradual breakup, and the devastating aftermath of their broken love. In a style that veers between extremes, from self-deprecation to pathos, compulsive repetition to rhapsodic musings, reticence to vulnerability, Qiuâ€™s genre-bending novel is at once a psychological thriller, a sublime romance, and the authorâ€™s own suicide note.

The letters (which, Qiu tells us, can be read in any order) leap between Paris, Taipei, and Tokyo. They display wrenching insights into what it means to live between cultures, languages, and gendersâ€”until the genderless character ZoÃ« appears, and the narratorâ€™s spiritual and physical identity is transformed. As powerfully raw and transcendent as Mishimaâ€™s Confessions of a Mask, Goetheâ€™s The Sorrows of Young Werther, and Theresa Chaâ€™s DictÃ©e, to name but a few, Last Words from Montmartre proves Qiu Miaojin to be one of the finest experimentalists and modernist Chinese-language writers of our generation.
Country USA
Brand New York Review Books
Manufacturer NYRB Classics
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber 9781590177259
Color Black
ReleaseDate 2014-06-03
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781590177259

Country	USA
Brand	New York Review Books
Manufacturer	NYRB Classics
Binding	Paperback
ItemPartNumber	9781590177259
Color	Black
ReleaseDate	2014-06-03
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781590177259

Last Words from Montmartre (New York Review Books Classics)

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