{"product_id":"the-eleven-isbn-9781935744627","title":"The Eleven","description":"In \u003ci\u003eThe Eleven\u003c\/i\u003e, Michon lets us into the world of Corentin, a painter shaped by—and who eventually shapes—history. Brought up among provincial aristocracy to become a  favorite of Parisian society—his paintings are commissioned by Louis XV’s mistress—Corentin’s career rides the Tides of the French Revolution. His masterpiece, \"The Eleven,\" is an enigmatic Last Supper, representing the eleven members of the Committee of Public Safety (including Robespierre and Saint Just) during the Reign of Terror. Corentin and company, his work of art, and the historical tableau of the French Revolution come to life in dazzling, even painterly, detail. A potent blend of fact and fiction, \u003ci\u003eThe Eleven\u003c\/i\u003e is a beautifully written, astute meditation on the nature of history itself and the artist’s role in it.A brilliant, surprising book, \"The Eleven\" is historical fiction at its best: a wholly imagined work that scrutinizes and reconceives how we construct history, time and experience. \u003cb\u003e— Martin Riker, \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt will bring you to your knees. \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Le Nouvel Observateur\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn astonishingly rich, mythic new direction in modern French narrative. \u003cb\u003e—Guy Davenport\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eReading Small Lives, I felt profoundly that Michon was carrying on the mark of a true writer: one who speaks in his own voice while conveying with all its immediacy and flesh-and-blood possibility of what it means to be human. \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—The Review of Contemporary Fiction\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe emotion, the forceful claims of the imagery . . . Michon achieves what other writers wouldn’t try, licensed as he is by keen regret and transfigured loss. Michon misses the poetry of the past, and in missing it he possesses it. —Benjamin Lytal Michon’s prose tends to slow down in order to oblige you to hear its rhythms and also to see and touch and smell what is happening beneath it.\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e —Harper’s Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMichon describes with such precision, with such force, that you start to think [it] exists. \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Liberation \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e[Michon's] aesthetic integrity and strict austerity have earned him the adoration of critics and made him worth teaching in every university. \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—L'Express \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA great book that, in an honest language, honed with gueuloir, was delivered to the world after years of labor, says the story. \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Le Magazine Litteraire\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis limpid, beautifully understated novel, winner of the French Academy’s Grand Prix duRoman, recounts the rise from humble origins of painter François-Élie Corentin, who eventually produces a masterpiece called \u003ci\u003eThe Eleven\u003c\/i\u003e that represents the members of the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror. \u003ci\u003e—\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e (Best Fiction in Translation 2013)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003ePierre Michon, born in Cards, France in 1945, is one of France's foremost contemporary writers. He was awarded the French Academy’s Grand Prix du Roman for \u003ci\u003eThe Eleven\u003c\/i\u003e, the Prix Decembre for his short novels \u003ci\u003eAbbes\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eCorps du roi\u003c\/i\u003e, the Prix Louis Guilloux for \u003ci\u003eLa grande beaune\u003c\/i\u003e (\u003ci\u003eThe Origin of the World\u003c\/i\u003e), and the Prix de la Ville de Paris in 1996 for his body of work. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJody Gladding is a poet and translator.  Her most recent collection of poetry is \u003ci\u003eRooms and Their Airs\u003c\/i\u003e. She has translated over twenty books from French, including \u003ci\u003eSerpent of Stars\u003c\/i\u003e by Jean Giono.  She teaches in the MFA program at Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives in Vermont. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter devoting a part of her life to specialized horticulture, Elizabeth Deshays now works as a teacher and translator. She is the author of a study on bilingual education, \u003ci\u003eL'Enfant Bilingue\u003c\/i\u003e. In addition to Michon’s novels, she translated Julien Gracq’s \u003ci\u003eLa Presqu’ile\u003c\/i\u003e (\u003ci\u003eThe Peninsula\u003c\/i\u003e). She lives in Provence. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJody Gladding and Elizabeth Deshays were awarded the French-American Foundation for Translation Prize in 2008 for their rendering of Pierre Michon’s \u003ci\u003eVies Minuscules\u003c\/i\u003e (\u003ci\u003eSmall Lives\u003c\/i\u003e).He was not tall, unobtrusive, but he held your attention with his fever- ish silence, his dark cheer, his alternately arrogant and oblique manner – grim, as they said. At least that was how he was seen later in life. None of that appears on the Würzburg ceilings, on the south wall of the Kaisersaal to be precise, in the wedding procession of Frederick Barbarossa, in the portrait Tiepolo left of him, when the model was twenty years old: he is there, so they say, and you can go see him, perched among a hundred princes, a hundred constables and ushers, as many slaves and merchants, porters, putti and animals, gods, merchan- dise, clouds, the four seasons and the four continents, and two incon- testable painters, the ones who assembled the world that way in its exhaustive recension and are nevertheless of the world, Giambattista","brand":"Archipelago","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301948117221,"sku":"NP9781935744627","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781935744627.jpg?v=1767739151","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-eleven-isbn-9781935744627","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}