Jean-Michel Hennassia is a new name in European prose. He is the author of the novels "The Club of Incorrigible Optimists", "The Incredible Life of Ernesto Che", and "Double-Dare Death". French critics called his book great, and French high-school students awarded the author the Prix Goncourt.
The novel’s hero is twelve years old. The time is early-1960s Paris—this notorious transitional age, when everything—school, communication with parents, and life in general—is difficult. Michel Marini is no different from his peers, except for his passion for photography and his wholehearted love of reading. He also has a secret hideout: a back room in a Paris bistro. There, strange people—who have fled countries separated from the free world by an iron curtain—argue, pine with longing, and play chess while waiting for the decision of their fate. Surprisingly, it is here, in this room—nicknamed the Club of Incorrigible Optimists—that the power lines of the era intersect.