Abert Cohen was born on the island of Corfu in 1895. He emigrated
to France at the age of five on a passport issued by the Ottoman
Empire and was raised in Marseilles. Although he chose to become a
Swiss citizen after completing law school in Geneva, he claims that
his true homeland was the French language. Cohen's tragicomic
novels Solal, Mangeclous, Belle de Seigneur, and Les Valeureux
attempt to reconnect man to his lost humanity. Belle du Signeur was
awarded the French Academy's Grand Prix du Roman.
Bella Cohen was born in London on 1919. During WWII, she worked at
the Free French Headquarters and with the Intergovernmental
Committee on Refugees. She met Albert Cohen in 1943 and shared a
life with him from 1947 until his death in 1981. Her translation of
Book of My Mother was a labor of love.
Book of My Mother is a sturdy in guilt, an act of contrition, for
in mourning his mother he grieves for his own lost childhood… It is
an achingly honest, autumnal book, generous in its humanity,
composed with art but without guile, the sincerest tribute of a
neglectful son. —David Coward
You must read this extraordinary testimony. —Le Figaro
This book made me cry and taught me one of the truths of writing:
the most successful book is the one that cuts to the heart of the
fragility of the writer, and of Man. —Alain Mabanckou
Brilliant . . . A miracle of patience and suppleness. —London
Review of Books
I do not think anyone has ever written anything more beautiful,
more deeply and soberly moving, about a mother and the feelings of
tenderness, regret, and even remorse that she can inspire. —Le Voix
du Nord
A masterpiece. A unique book that will endure. A most beautiful
love story. —Marcel Pagnol
That anything so sad can also be witty and sublimely comic makes
Mrs. Cohen [the mother] into a triumph of literature. —Nick
DiMartino, Shelf Awareness
A gold-plated, cherry-on-top classic in France... Characters
[are] rendered with eye-popping, Rabelaisian detail and touching
vulgarity... Its unspooling comedy of manners; its
first-ideal-then-smothering love affair all lead the reader to
still-huger questions: how can we love humans, obsessed as they are
with power? How can we reconcile reason and faith? —The Kenyon
Review
You must read this book. —Jacques Brenner, Paris-Normandie
One of the most beautiful love stories ever written.
—Paris-Match
A most moving and delicate love song..—Le Figaro
I read Livre de ma mere twice. This heartrending book haunts you. I
just had to go back to it. —Emile Henriot, Academie Francaise, Le
Monde
You must read this extraordinary testimony of a son. Never before
has a writer spoken of his mother like Albert Cohen. —Andre Billy,
Academie Goncourt, Le Figaro
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