From her apartment block in New York, Catherine Certitude thinks back to her childhood and growing up with her father in Paris. The life she describes is uneventful: adult conversations half-understood; dance school; her Papa’s shop and his slightly shady business deals. Nonetheless it’s full of character, humour and a singular charm. “Life, it’s just you and me,” says her father, and at special moments the two of them take off their glasses, sharing a blurry and softer world. Years later, Catherine’s memories are vivid, the world of the 10th arrondissement where a little girl walked with her father, crystal clear. Sempé’s ink and watercolour illustrations enchant too.
A classic French story from Nobel Prize-winner Patrick Modiano and celebrated illustrator Jean-Jacques Sempé.
Beautifully illustrated, this is a love letter to Paris, ballet and childhood for fans of The Little Prince, Le Petit Nicholas and Madeline.
Catherine lives with her gentle father, Georges Certitude, who runs a shipping business in Paris with a failed poet named Casterade. Father and daughter share the simple pleasures of daily life: sitting in the church square, walking to school, going to her ballet class every Thursday afternoon. But just why did Georges change his name to Certitude? What kind of trouble with the law did Casterade rescue him from? And why did Catherine's ballerina mother leave to return to New York?
Translated by William Rodarmor
'This lovely book suggests the delicacy and strength of an eggshell.' Publishers Weekly
'The stylish watercolour illustrations are lively, conveying the warmth and the quiet wit of the text.' School Library Journal
'What particularly engages is the way Modiano captures memories of childhood: fragmented, misunderstood, but glowing in the crucible of recollection' Booklist
Author
About Patrick Modiano
Patrick Modiano is a celebrated French novelist, author of numerous books for adults and children. His work has been translated into over 30 languages. Notable awards include the Grand Prix du Roman de l'Academie Francaise, the Prix Goncourt and the Austrian State Prize for European Literature. In 2014 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 'for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies.'
