Bird in a Cage

by Dard, Frédéric; Bellos, David

• ISBN13: 9781782271994
• ISBN10: 1782271996
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2016-08-16
• Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo

Summary

A man becomes entangled in a dangerous web of death and deceit in this “hallmark of classic French noir” set in 1960s Paris (The Guardian)
 
Trouble is the last thing Albert needs. Traveling back to his childhood home on Christmas Eve to mourn his mother’s death, he finds the loneliness and nostalgia of his Parisian quartier unbearable. Until, that evening, he encounters a beautiful, seemingly innocent woman at a brasserie, and his spirits are lifted.
 
Still, something about the woman disturbs him. Where is the father of her child? And what are those two red stains on her sleeve? When she invites him back to her apartment, Albert thinks he’s in luck. But a monstrous scene awaits them, and he finds himself lured into the darkness against his better judgment.
 
Unravelling like a paranoid nightmare, Bird in a Cage melds existentialist drama with thrilling noir to tell the story of a man trapped in a prison of his own making.

Author Biography

Frédéric Dard (1921-2000) was one of the best known and loved French crime writers of the twentieth century. Enormously prolific, he wrote more than three hundred thrillers, suspense stories, plays and screenplays, under a variety of noms de plume, throughout his long and illustrious career, which also saw him win the 1957 Grand prix de littérature policière for The Executioner Cries, available from Pushkin Vertigo in Fall 2016.

David Bellos is an English translator and biographer who currently teaches French and Comparative literature at Princeton University. His translations include several of Georges Simenon's Maigret novels, as well as Paul Fournel's Dear Reader, published by Pushkin Press. He has also written biographies of Perec, Jacques Tati and Romain Gary and an introduction to translation, Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything.