A French journalist, Lançon was gravely wounded in the 2015 terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo. His powerful memoir, an award-winning bestseller in France, confronts this experience neither as a critique of terrorism nor from the perspective of a witness, but as a life-changing event. In the year it took him to return to writing—he’s still a cultural critic at Charlie Hebdo—Lançon focused on healing both physically and emotionally. As he endured grueling treatment for his maimed face while reading and rereading Proust, Mann, Kafka, and others in search of guidance, he also reassessed his relationship to the world, his work, and to love and friendship. In partnership with the French Embassy,
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