Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru
Darkness in the City of Light
Darkness in the City of Light
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Disgrifiad Cymraeg / Welsh Description
'Dinas goleuni' y teitl yw Paris dan oruchwyliaeth yr Almaenwyr - mae'r lle, y bobl a'u bywydau yn glwyfedig. Yn y cyfnod ansicr hwn lle mae bodolaeth pawb dan fygythiad, gwelir y prif gymeriad, yr aml-lofrudd Marcel Petiot. Ai meddyg ydyw, un sy'n cydweithio â'r goresgynwyr neu un sy'n ymladd yn eu herbyn? Does neb a ŵyr, hyd yn oed ei ddioddefwyr.
Disgrifiad Saesneg / English Description
'The city of light' under German occupation: Paris, a place, a people, their lives in flux. And in these uncertainties, these compromised loyalties, these existences constantly under threat, Marcel Petiot, a mass murderer. A doctor, a resistance fighter, a collaborator: who can tell? Not even the people he kills.
Manylion y cynnyrch / Product details
- ISBN 13
- 9781781726136
- Gwales Code
- gwales.com.9781781726136
- Gwerthwr / Vendor
- Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru
- Long Title
- Darkness in the City of Light
- Awdur / Author
- Curtis, Tony
- Current Price ex VAT
- £9.99
- Current Price inc VAT
- £9.99
- Availability Status (EN)
- Available
- Availability Status (CY)
- Ar gael
- Dyddiad cyhoeddi / Publication Date
- 2021-11-14
- Cyhoeddwr / Publisher
- Seren
- Media Type (EN)
- Paperback / softback
- Media Type (CY)
- Clawr meddal
- Pages
- 220 pages
- Size
- 135 × 208 mm
- Language Code
- English
- Categori / Category
- CY: Nofelau a Storïau ar Gyfer Oedolion (yn Saesneg) | EN: Adult Fiction and Stories (in English)
- Is-gategori / Subcategory
- CY: Ffuglen Lenyddol a Chyffredinol (yn Saesneg) | EN: General and Literary Fiction (in English)
Bywgraffiad yr Awdur / Author Biography
Tony Curtis is an established and acclaimed poet who has published eleven collections. He has also published a volume of short stories, written critical and travel books, edited many anthologies, and has written extensively war and on visual art, particularly in Wales. Curtis led the Creative Writing department at the University of Glamorgan for many years.
Adolygiad y Cyhoeddwr / Publisher Review
In 2002 during the hunt for disputed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, became a figure of ridicule when he talked about ‘known knowns, and known unknowns’. While this was easy to mock due to his clumsy language, what Rumsfeld was getting at was ultimately true and is a phenomenon far more widely applicable than the hunt for weapons. In essence, there are things we know, things we don’t know, and there are blind spots of things we aren’t even aware of not knowing. It’s a phenomenon that it feels as though Tony Curtis is playing with in his debut novel, Darkness in the City of Light Curtis’s novel (if you can call it a novel) centres around the question of what we really know in wartime. Specifically occupied Paris during World War II. When record-keeping is disturbed by occupation, when people are facing their most extreme challenges, when unrest is everywhere, what and who can we trust? Is there a definitive history of a time and place at such a point of uncertainty? While occupied Paris is certainly one of the key characters here, at the heart of the book lies Marcel Petiot. It is his story that acts almost as a metaphor for the uncertainty and cruelty of war. Without wanting to sound like Rumsfeld, there are things we know about Petiot and things we don’t. Marcel Petiot is a real and documented historical figure: a doctor and a serial killer. The pictures of Petiot published in this book are genuine historical artefact, but they sit next to fictionalised dialogue and diaries directly from Petiot, his nearest and dearest and his victims. What is fiction? What is fact? And does the distinction between the two matter? Curtis is cleverly indirect in presenting these ideas. This is not your standard narrative novel. It is a patchwork blend of prose, dialogue, photographs, poetry, medical records and more. Each piece varies from as little as a quarter of a page, to extended chapters. They shift from pre-war, to post-war and not always in chronological order. The story builds, as does a picture of a city and its people. This is both a classic ‘who-dunnit?’ and something far more complex. Darkness in the City of Light is Curtis’s debut novel, though he is already a widely published and celebrated poet. Poetry forms part of the novel’s narrative and there is a sense of poetry in the way the book is constructed. One senses that Curtis has carefully laid out the various elements of this book multiple times, as he would with a poem. This is a carefully structured novel and one that feels as though it would benefit from multiple readings.
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