Premier sang
One of 35 copies on vergé de hollande paper, first in the limitation (no. 25).
Signed copy: “de tout cœur, Amélie Nothomb.”
Prix Renaudot 2021.
Amélie Nothomb’s father, Patrick, died in March 2020, during lockdown, and she was unable to say goodbye to him.
She decided to dedicate a book to him, Premier Sang, in which she brings him back to life, speaking in the first person. The work is deeply personal, and it drew the attention of critics and of an important literary jury: the Prix Renaudot, awarded to it in November 2021.
A writer fond of fictionalized biography, in which she regularly appears herself, Nothomb here, in her thirty-second novel, brings her father back to life. Having often described her writing in terms of childbirth, she extends the metaphor with an opening epigraph from the playwright Sacha Guitry: “Mon père est un grand enfant que j’ai eu quand j’étais tout petit.”
A very fine copy, in as-new condition.
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[VERBATIM]
“On me conduit devant le peloton d’exécution. Le temps s’étire, chaque seconde dure un siècle de plus que la précédente. J’ai vingt-huit ans. En face de moi, la mort a le visage de douze exécutants. L’usage veut que parmi les armes distribuées, l’une soit chargée à blanc. Ainsi, chacun peut se croire innocent du meutre qui va être perpétré. Je doute que cette tradition ait été respectée aujourd’hui. Aucun de ces hommes ne semble avoir besoin d’une possibilité d’innocence.” (Premier Sang, p. 9)