What is this book about?
During a sleepless night in Vienna, the musicologist Franz Ritter goes back over his life: his academic career, his stays in the East and the time he has spent with Sarah, the woman he loves. His monologue, addressed to her, is punctuated by digressions grouped into portraits of orientalists, which together form a kind of book within the book. Boussole is Mathias Énard’s ninth novel.
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