The Crab Nebula =: La Naebuleuse Du Crabe -- Éric Chevillard, Paperback

The Crab Nebula (La Nébuleuse du crabe) is comprised of fifty-two vivid chapters that provide startling insights into the existence of this nebulous man named Crab: his nightmarish--and none too solid--physique, his mysterious absence from the pages of history, his birth in prison, his never having been born at all. In his portrait of Crab, Éric Chevillard gives us a character who is genuinely strange and curiously like ourselves. A postmodernist novel par excellence, The Crab Nebula parodies literary conventions, deconstructs narrative and meaning, and brilliantly combines absurdity and hopelessness with irony and humor. What distinguishes it most of all is the startling originality of Chevillard's voice and vision. There is whimsy and despair in this novel, pathos and laughter, satire and warm affection. The Crab Nebula is the fifth novel--and the first to be translated into English--by the brilliant young French author Éric Chevillard. His sympathetic yet outrageous portrait of Crab calls to mind works by Melville, Valéry, and Kafka, while never being less than utterly unique.

Author: Éric Chevillard
Publisher: Bison Books
Published: 02/01/1997
Pages: 128
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.47lbs
Size: 8.40h x 4.99w x 0.43d
ISBN: 9780803263703

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 01/13/1997 pg. 57
Kirkus Reviews 01/01/1997 pg. 20
New York Times 03/30/1997 pg. 16
Library Journal 01/01/1997 pg. 144

About the Author
Jordan Stump is the translator of four novels by Marie Redonnet--Hôtel Splendid, Forever Valley, Rose Mellie Rose, and Nevermore (Nebraska 1994 and 1996). Eleanor Hardin is an artist who lives in Lincoln, Nebraska. This is their first collaborative translation.