Three Days and a Life

by Pierre Lemaitre

  You take bits from this person and bits from that, from a friend you have known for a lifetime or from someone you overheard on a railway platform while waiting for a train or from some odd phrase or thing reported in a newspaper. That is the way fiction is made and there is no other way.

  And so, during the writing of this novel, certain images, certain expressions occurred to me that I knew came from elsewhere. Those I have been able to identify come from (in no particular order): Cynthia Fleury, Jean-Paul Sartre, Georges Simenon, Louis Guilloux, Virginie Despentes, Rosy & John, Thierry Dana, Henri Poincaré, David Vann, William McIllvaney, Marcel Proust, Yann Moix, Georges Simenon, Marc Dugain, K. O. Knausgård, William Gaddis, Nick Pizzolatto, Ludwig Lewisohn, Homer and doubtless several others . . .

  PIERRE LEMAITRE was born in Paris in 1951. He worked for many years as a teacher of literature before becoming a novelist. He was awarded the Crime Writers’ Association International Dagger, alongside Fred Vargas, for Alex, and was sole winner for Camille and The Great Swindle. In 2013, The Great Swindle won the Prix Goncourt, France’s leading literary award.

  FRANK WYNNE is an award-winning translator from French and Spanish. His previous translations include works by Virginie Despentes, Patrick Modiano and Michel Houellebecq.