V13
Chronicle of a Trial
by Emmanuel Carrère
This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app
1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date Nov 19 2024 | Archive Date Dec 19 2024
Description
ONE OF THE WASHINGTON POST'S TEN BEST BOOKS OF 2024
One of the London Times's Nine Best Literary Nonfiction Books of the Year
"Extraordinary . . . Absolutely gripping." —Chris Power, The Guardian
"Moving and masterful . . . [A] magnificent book." —Becca Rothfeld, The Washington Post
A moving, hard-hitting account of the Paris attacks trial by France’s leading nonfiction writer.
Nearly every day for ten months, from September 2021 to June 2022, life on the Île de la Cité in central Paris came to a standstill. The most expensive and complex trial in French history—featuring twenty men accused of involvement in the 2015 attacks on the Bataclan and other sites across Paris—was underway. More than three hundred lawyers represented thousands of victims and the accused, all of whom were given the chance to testify. The case ran to more than a million pages. And, nearly every day for ten months, Emmanuel Carrère showed his press pass, walked through a metal detector, and took a seat in a windowless courtroom to bear witness.
V13 isn’t so much the story of a trial but of the community that formed around it—a city within the city, home to the innocent and the accused, the forgiving and the vengeful, the outspoken and the silent. Carrère introduces us to lawyers, survivors, family members, and above all the defendants, assembling in painstaking detail a human portrait of the crime. What emerges from these pages is a study of good and evil—and a philosophical journey through the borderlands between the two. Not since Eichmann in Jerusalem has there been a book of this scope and ambition.
A Note From the Publisher
Emmanuel Carrère, novelist, filmmaker, journalist, and biographer, is the award-winning, internationally renowned author of Yoga, 97,196 Words, The Adversary, Lives Other Than My Own, and My Life as a Russian Novel, among other books. He lives in Paris.
John Lambert has translated Monsieur, Reticence, and Self-Portrait Abroad by Jean-Philippe Toussaint, as well as Emmanuel Carrère’s Limonov, The Kingdom, and 97,196 Words. He lives in South Korea.
John Lambert has translated Monsieur, Reticence, and Self-Portrait Abroad by Jean-Philippe Toussaint, as well as Emmanuel Carrère’s Limonov, The Kingdom, and 97,196 Words. He lives in South Korea.
Advance Praise
★ “Carrère delivers a clear-eyed and soul-searching portrait of the nine-month trial . . . The mystery of [defendant Salah] Abdeslam’s conscience fuels much of the meditative narrative, but the book never favors a single protagonist, effectively mirroring the spirit of justice in its willingness to weigh all sides. It’s an unforgettable journey through the abyss.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Forensic and troubling, deeply humane, utterly gripping, a book of singular importance for our times, on law as story and life, superbly rendered for the reader in English." —Philippe Sands, author of East West Street and The Last Colony
"Emmanuelle Carrère has written what will surely be remembered as a classic account of the Paris attacks trial, one that is rigorous and admirably self-effacing. Yet as heartbreaking as V13 is, Carrère never succumbs to despair, or to a seductive pessimism about France's future: his book is an affirmation of life, of survival, of the bonds of community and solidarity that allow us to rebuild in the aftermath of shattering violence." —Adam Shatz, author of The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon
"Brilliant. Clear-eyed, wise, humane and utterly compelling." —Paul Murray, author of The Bee Sting
"Impelled by a tolerant mind’s desire to confront the intolerable, packed with humane insight and indelible detail, V13 is an utterly riveting account of one of contemporary Europe's darkest nights–and its anguished aftermath–by a French literary colossus." —Rob Doyle, author of Autobibliography
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9780374615703 |
| PRICE | $29.00 (USD) |
| PAGES | 320 |
Available on NetGalley
Average rating from 14 members
Readers who liked this book also liked:
© 2025 NetGalley LLC
• All Rights Reserved
