When you listen to this song : on memory, loss, and writing / Lola Lafon ; translated by Lauren Elkin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lafon, Lola, 1974- author.

Contributor:

Elkin, Lauren, translator.

Standardized Title:

Quand tu écouteras cette chanson. English

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

Frank, Anne, 1929-1945.

Frank, Anne.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945).

Lafon, Lola, 1974---Travel--Netherlands--Amsterdam.

Lafon, Lola.

Anne Frank House.

Collective memory.

Diaries--History and criticism.

Diaries.

Autobiography in literature.

Intimacy (Psychology) in literature.

Memory in literature.

Loss (Psychology).

Travel.

Netherlands--Amsterdam.

Authors, French--21st century--Biography.

Women authors, French--21st century--Biography.

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Influence.

Genre:

Autobiographies

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Autobiographies.

Physical Description:

163 pages ; 23 cm

Other Title:

On memory, loss, and writing

Place of Publication:

New Haven ; London : Yale University Press, [2025]

Language Note:

In English, translated from the original French.

Summary:

"A quietly powerful exploration of memory and forgetting, from one of France's leading feminist public intellectuals. In 2021, the award-winning French writer Lola Lafon was granted permission to stay overnight -- alone for ten hours -- in the Annex in Amsterdam where Anne Frank and her family had hidden from the Nazis between 1942 and 1944. Lafon's visit to this space, where Anne Frank wrote her famous diary, evoked the confinement and constant danger suffered by the Franks, and the family's ghostly presence as well. 'The night was inhabited, lit by reflections,' Lafon writes. 'Some urgency still dwelled at the heart of the Annex, crouched there, ready to be discovered.' Exploring the many stories told about Anne Frank, Lafon tries to find the precocious girl at the heart of the venerated and exploited myth, a disciplined writer whose famous diary is in fact a wonderfully constructed literary work. Throughout, Lafon reflects on what it means to lose loved ones, both Lafon's own family in the Holocaust and her childhood friend to the Khmer Rouge. A prizewinner and bestseller in France, this book asks us to consider the stories we tell ourselves about tragedy, how we grapple with loss, and why, in the face of danger and confinement, women write"-- Provided by publisher.

Notes:

First published in French as Quand tu écouteras cette chanson in 2022 by Éditions Stock, Paris --Title page verso.

ISBN:

0300275889

9780300275889

OCLC:

1499662944