Book talk: Mathias Énard- Perfecting the Shot

*This event will take place in English*

La Maison Française of NYU is proud to welcome acclaimed author Mathias Énard for a presentation of a recently reissued first novel Perfecting the Shot, in conversation with staff writer for The New Yorker Julian Lucas.

Mathias Enard's first novel, finally in English, is a ruthless demonstration of how violence corrupts the soul. In an unnamed city completely torn apart by civil war, a teenage sniper has only one goal: to fire the perfect shot. He sublimates himself into his weapon, controls his breath, stays serenely calm, and listens to his body and the beat of his heart. Lying in wait on rooftops, he shoots at civilians while his mentally ill mother cowers in their apartment. But the violence eats away at any sense of morality as he kills indiscriminately, for the sake of killing itself. His routine is eventually disrupted by the arrival of Myrna, a fifteen-year-old girl hired to care for his mother, and his increasingly disturbing obsession with Myrna threatens to push them all over the brink. This unrelenting book, whose harrowing urgency belies its piercing lyricism, exposes the disastrous effects of extreme violence on society.

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