TEHRAN – “The Anomaly”, a novel by French writer Hervé Le Tellier has been published in Persian by Now.

The 2020 book has been translated by Fatemeh Ebrahimian and Mohammad-Amin Beik.

It is a virtuoso novel where logic confronts magic and that explores the part of ourselves that eludes us.

In June 2021, a senseless event upends the lives of hundreds of men and women, all passengers on a flight from Paris to New York. 

Among them: Blake, a respectable family man, though he works as a contract killer; Slimboy, a Nigerian pop star tired of living a lie; Joanna, a formidable lawyer whose flaws have caught up with her; and Victor Miesel, a critically acclaimed yet commercially unsuccessful writer who suddenly becomes a cult hit. 

All of them believed they had double lives. None imagined just how true that was.

This witty variation on the doppelgänger theme, which takes us on a journey from Lagos and Mumbai to the White House, is Hervé Le Tellier's most ambitious work yet.

An English translation by Adriana Hunter was published by Other Press on November 23, 2021. The novel received positive reviews from the literary press. It received the Prix Goncourt in 2020.

Organized like a “novel of novels”, “Anomaly” begins with the presentation of several characters, in as many chapters written according to the stylistic codes of different genres, from thriller to the psychological novel, from littérateur Blanche to the introspective narrative. 

The reader quickly understands that an event, the “anomaly” of a Paris–New York flight in March 2021, is the link between all these characters.

French writer and journalist Annick Geille wrote that Le Tellier seems inspired by the “postmodern science fiction” of the cyberpunk subgenre.

The work is structured similarly to that of a television series script.

Photo: A combination photo shows French writer Hervé Le Tellier and the front cover of the Persian edition of his novel “The Anomaly”.

MMS/YAW