They Stole Our Beauty
by Pascal Bruckner
translated by Stuart Bell
Benjamin Tholon and his fiancée Hélène are driving back from what was supposed to have been a relaxing skiing holiday in Switzerland. When their car suddenly breaks down in a snow blizzard, they are saved by an unlikely rescuer who offers them overnight shelter in a remote farm. Christened ‘The Wilter’, this rural retreat is home to matriarch philosophy teacher Francesca and her charming litigator husband, Jérôme.
Before long, the stranded guests Benjamin and Hélène begin arguing over their predicament. Then, when the ever-curious Benjamin begins roaming the house, he makes a chilling and scarcely believable discovery: from beneath the farm’s floorboards, muffled voices cry out to him.
Deep underground and in the shadow of history, a deadly scheme is at work, fuelled by obsession, resentment and an insatiable thirst for youth...
Winner of the 1997 Renaudot Prize, 'They Stole Our Beauty' is a profound and disturbing meditation on aesthetics, social justice and the politics of self-and-other relations.
ISBN: 9781916477414
192 pages
Date published: 01/02/2019
Paperback
Pascal Bruckner was born 15 December 1948 in Paris. A prize-winning novelist and philosopher, his fiction includes Bitter Moon which was made into a film under the same title by Roman Polanski, My Little Husband and The House of Angels. His essays and novels have been translated into more than thirty languages and have received worldwide acclaim : Temptation of Innocence (Médici Prize 1995), Perpetual Euphoria: On The Duty To Be Happy (2000), Misery of Prosperity (Prize for The Best Economic publication; The Today Prize 2002), The Tyranny of Guilt (2006), The Love Paradox (2009), and Has Marriage For Love Failed? (2010). A Good Son, his latest book to be released in the UK, is a memoir that reads like a novel, a Bildungsroman which charts his journey from pious Catholic child to leading philosopher and writer on French culture.
Stuart Bell studied French and German at Cambridge University, then as a postgraduate at Birkbeck, University of London. His next publication will be the upcoming 87 Press translation of Pascal Bruckner's most recent novel 'One Year and One Day', due for release in 2020.
