M HKA Ensembles

Book, 19.9 x 13 cm, 109 p., language : French, publisher : Éditions Balland, ISBN : 2-7158-0148-3.

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. B 2027/151).

Literary synopsis

Portrait en pied de Suzanne (or Head to toe portrait of Suzanne, roughly translated) is a whirlwind romance between the spurned, isolated, lonely narrator and the beautiful Suzanne. The narrator is in his ancestral home town, which he despises, in a country he despises, full of people he despises who speak a language he doesn’t know a shred of, and despises. And despite all this, he has somehow found himself alone. He is ruled by a maddening need to consume, to eat and drink, so much so that he looks over his own fat, hairy meat in the mirror and salivates. It is on a delirious post- 3.AM food search that he injures his left foot and bumps into his old flame Suzanne. Or rather, his left foot, after the application of ointment, comes to resemble Suzanne, and their love affair blossoms from there. The only woman who has ever loved him has returned to support him.

-       Andrew Hodgson

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