Impossible City (eBook)

Paris in the Twenty-First Century

Kuper Simon Kuper (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024
242 Seiten
ProFile (Verlag)
978-1-80081-649-7 (ISBN)

Infos

'Kuper is a shrewd observer [in] this entertaining mix of memoir and anthropology' The Sunday TimesFrom the bestselling author of Chums comes an explorer's tale of a naif getting to understand a complex, glittering, beautiful and often cruel city. Simon Kuper has experienced Paris both as a human being and as a journalist. He has grown middle-aged there, eaten the croissants, taken his children to countless football matches on freezing Saturday mornings in the city's notorious banlieues, and in 2015 lived through two terrorist attacks on his family's neighbourhood. Over two decades of becoming something of a cantankerous Parisian himself, Kuper has watched the city change. This century, Paris has globalised, gentrified, and been shocked into realising its role as the crucible of civilisational conflict. Sometimes it's a multicultural paradise, and sometimes it isn't. This decade, Parisians have lived through a sequence of shocks: terrorist attacks, record floods and heatwaves, the burning of Notre Dame, the storming of the city by gilets jaunes, and the pandemic. Now, as the Olympics come to town, France is busy executing the 'Grand Paris' project: the most serious attempt yet to knit together the bejewelled city with its neglected suburbs. This is a captivating memoir of today's Paris without the cliches.

Rezensionen

A sparkling firework of a book

A gripping read ... exquisite and depressing in equal measure

Simon Kuper does a great job in conveying why Paris is a city that is impossible to embrace and impossible to resist ... very funny

A lively read that captures many of the capital's contradictions

Fascinating ... The picture Kuper draws is of a nation with a decadent and deeply unprofessional ruling class, a diagnosis with which it is impossible to disagree

A portrait of Parisian society ... the style is elegant and flinty, the humour dry

Kuper has the journalist's touch of rendering clichés less clichéd and giving the personal a hint of universalism

With the perspective of a foreigner, and two decades as a Paris resident behind him, Kuper chronicles the paradoxical complexities of Parisian life in his memoir

An absorbing, affectionate, acutely observed, cliché-free study of contemporary Paris

Next time you travel to the former City of Light, take this book

One of the best books about Paris... deftly debunks the alarmist narratives [to] reveal a city of tolerance and nuance

[A] revealing memoir ... Kuper is a clear-eyed observer of all the history that is happening all around him ...for all the transformations of the past two decades, however, Kuper is always alert to the city's particularity

Incisive, insightful and timely

Highly readable and amusing prose ... Kuper is a charming guide, with a particularly good eye for the telling quote

A persuasive defence of the very idea of a city... full of warm but unsentimental depictions of Paris' communities... a reminder of the countless ways in which urban life remains one of the few efficient vaccines against bigotry and toxic nationalism

With a dry wit and a journalist's eye, Kuper unravels the layered past and looks to the future

A must-read for admirers of the City of Light

Informative and enlightening with a sarcastic touch... puts us on the streets themselves and lets us mingle

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 11.4.2024
• Zusatzinfo: None
• Verlagsort: London
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte
• Schlagworte: 21st century history • French Children Don’t Throw Food Pamela Druckerman • My Place at the Table Alexander Lobrano • No. 91/92 Lauren Elkin • Paris • Paris Match John Von Sothen
• ISBN-10: 1-80081-649-9 / 1800816499
• ISBN-13: 978-1-80081-649-7 / 9781800816497