Suicide by Edouard Lev

Suicide by Edouard Lev

Suicide cannot be read as simply another novel it is, in a sense, the author's own oblique, public suicide note, a unique meditation on this most extreme of refusals.

"With a precision that can be frightening, Levé describes a man who is wholly alienated from the consolations of the outside world, beholden only to the tiniest shifts in his perception and sensations (..) As the narrator’s revelations about his friend’s inner life become increasingly complex, the reader comes to see “tu” as a stand-in for the narrator’s own self, an externalized form that allows him empathic clarity about the most disturbed parts of his own being." —Hannah Tennant-Moore, n+1 Magazine

"If this irony-laden book contains a message to the reader it may well be this: 'You suffered real life in its continuous stream, but you controlled the flow of fictional life by reading at your own rhythm . . . As a reader, you had the power of a god: time submitted to you.' If one were to substitute 'reading' and 'reader' with 'creating' and 'creator' one might conclude that it's possible to read Suicide not simply as a veiled cri de coeur by a man looking to air the messy circumstances for which he took his life, but as a controlled work of art by a conceptual artist who wanted to leave us with a lasting document from which we might, paradoxically, muster the strength to carry on." —Christopher Byrd, The Guardian

"Suicide is both fiction and final, nonfictional statement, both novel and memoir. It is we, as readers and participants, who stand at the center of these two mirrors hung opposite each other and find the author infinitely, diminishingly multiplied. Though we'll probably never know whether Levé—who in addition to being a writer was a successful photographer with an interest in conceptual art—killed himself to bring his grim metafiction full circle, it is all but impossible not to read his haunting Suicide in this troubling light" —Laird Hurt, Bookforum

Édouard Levé (1965-2008), born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, was a writer, photographer, and visual artist. Levé was the author of four books of writing—Oeuvres, Journal, Autoportrait, and Suicide—as well as three books of photography.

Jan Steyn is Associate Professor and the Director of the MFA in Literary Translation at the University of Iowa.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781628976106
ISBN 10	1628976101
Title	Suicide
Author	Edouard Leve
Series	Dalkey Archive Essentials
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Dalkey Archive Press
Year published	2025-09-11
Number of pages	100
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.