PRIX MAISON DE LA PRESSE

This masterful bestselling novel by Pierre Assouline is the fictional wartime memoir of Edouard Kiefer, a former policeman now a private security officer for the famous Hotel Lutetia in Paris. He writes to exonerate himself of accusations that he collaborated with the German occupying forces during the war, and in the process, gives a rich portrait of the lives of the rich and famous, of a country’s prewar rumors and wartime fears, of the post-war trauma of the returning Holocaust survivors, and of the inner workings of a grand hotel.

From his little office off the elegant lobby, Edouard observes the quirks of some famous guests, including James Joyce, and Saint-Exupéry. When the latter had troubles with his landlord, he would book not one but two rooms (on different floors) of the hotel, for himself and his wife Consuelo. This precaution didn’t prevent the couple from having violent arguments that could be heard by all, day and night.

Pierre Assouline was born in Casablanca in 1953. He is a writer, a journalist, and a producer (Lulu, L.A. Without a Map, Conspirators of Pleasure) and the author of several biographies, among them Henri Cartier-Bresson: A Biography, Thames & Hudson, 2005. Lutetia, is his fifth novel. Translation rights have sold in six territories.