HHhH: A Novel
By Laurent Binet
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Featured on public radio:
Weekend Edition Saturday Rich Reads: Historical Fiction Fit For A Queen
June 23, 2012
NPR’s Madeline Miller says, ” HHhH is a startling novel. For one thing, it’s Laurent Binet’s first, though you’d never know it, given the flawless, self-assured storytelling. On top of that, who would expect a postmodern exploration of the limits of historical fiction to be a page turner? But it is, absolutely, thanks to Binet’s skill with his fascinating subject matter: the assassination of Himmler’s brutal right-hand man, Reinhard Heydrich, by two Czechoslovakian resistance fighters, Jozef Gabcik and Jan Kubis. The book’s main character, however, is really Binet himself, who makes a wonderfully nontraditional and unreliable narrator as he struggles to unearth the truth beneath layers of history. The result was awarded France’s prestigious Prix Goncourt for a first novel, and is now freshly translated into English by Sam Taylor. If you are curious about the unusual title, it comes from a bit of German wordplay: Himmlers Hirn heisst Heydrich, or in English, Himmler’s brain is called Heydrich.”
