The Idiot |
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Author:
| Batuman, Elif |
ISBN: | 978-1-910702-69-7 |
Publication Date: | Jun 2017 |
Publisher: | Penguin Random House
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Imprint: | Jonathan Cape |
Book Format: | Hardback |
List Price: | AUD $39.99 |
Book Description:
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**LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2018** 'I loved it and could have read a thousand more pages of it.' - Emma Cline Selin, a tall, highly strung Turkish-American from New Jersey turns up at Harvard and finds herself dangerously overwhelmed by the challenges and possibilities of adulthood. She studies linguistics and literature, teaches ESL and spends a lot of time thinking about what language - and languages - can and cannot...
More Description
**LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2018**
'I loved it and could have read a thousand more pages of it.' - Emma Cline
Selin, a tall, highly strung Turkish-American from New Jersey turns up at Harvard and finds herself dangerously overwhelmed by the challenges and possibilities of adulthood. She studies linguistics and literature, teaches ESL and spends a lot of time thinking about what language - and languages - can and cannot do.
Along the way she befriends Svetlana, a cosmopolitan Serb, and obsesses over Ivan, a mathematician from Hungary. The two conduct a hilarious relationship that culminates with Selin spending the summer teaching English in a Hungarian village and enduring a series of surprising excursions. Throughout her journeys, Selin ponders profound questions about how culture and language shape who we are, how difficult it is to be a failed writer, and how baffling love is.
At once clever and clueless, Batuman's heroine shows us with perfect hilarity and soulful inquisitiveness just how messy it can be to forge a self.