Jean-Philippe Toussaint's new novel haunts the rentrée littéraire
In "La hantise," the Belgian writer blends a mock spy story with a meditation on the ghosts that follow us, according to a review in En attendant Nadeau.
Jean-Philippe Toussaint returns for this year's rentrée littéraire with "La hantise," a book that the literary site En attendant Nadeau describes as a "vrai-faux roman d'espionnage" — a novel that borrows the trappings of spy fiction while pursuing something else entirely.
According to the review, the book doubles as a delicate variation on the ghosts that inhabit us, handled with what the critic calls virtuoso lightness and delicacy. No further plot details or publisher information were given in the source.
Toussaint, one of the more distinctive voices to have come out of Belgian letters in recent decades, is a regular presence in the French rentrée calendar. This latest title joins the crowded autumn field of new French-language fiction that critics are now sorting through.
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