In this book Ralph Schoolcraft explores the extraordinary career of the modern French author, film director, and diplomat—a romantic and tragic figure whose fictions extended well beyond his books. Born Roman Kacew, he overcame an impoverished boyhood to become a French Resistance hero and win the coveted Goncourt Prize under the pseudonym—and largely invented persona—Romain Gary. Although he published such acclaimed works as The Roots of Heaven and Promise at Dawn, the Gaullist traditions that he defended in the world of French letters fell from favor, and his critical fortunes suffered at the hands of a hostile press. Schoolcraft details Gary's frustrated struggle to evolve as a writer in the eye of a public that now considered him a known quantity. Identifying the daring strategies used by this mysterious character as he undertook an elaborate scheme to reach a new readership, Schoolcraft offers new insight into the dynamics of authorship and fame within the French literary institutions. In the early 1970s Gary made his departure from the conservative literary establishment, publishing works that boasted a quirky, elliptical style under a variety of pseudonymous personae, the most successful of which was that of an Algerian immigrant by the name of Emile Ajar. Moving behind the mask of his new creation, Gary was able to win critical and popular acclaim and a second Goncourt in 1975. But as Schoolcraft suggests, Gary may have "sold his shadow"—that is, lost his authorial persona—by marketing himself too effectively. Going so far as to recruit a cousin to stand in as the public face of this phantom author, Gary kept the secret of his true authorship until his violent death in 1980 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The press reacted with resentment over the scheme, and he was shunned into the ranks of literary oddities. Schoolcraft draws from archives of the several thousand documents related to Gary housed at the French publishing firms of Gallimard and Mercure de France, as well as the Butler Library at Columbia University. Exploring the depths of a story that has long remained shrouded in mystery, Romain Gary: The Man Who Sold His Shadow is as much a fascinating biographical sketch as it is a thought-provoking reflection on the assumptions made about identities in the public sphere.

DIVIn Jon Land’s first novel, a crew of Arab terrorists attempts to tear America apart from the inside out—and only Alabaster, an Israeli special forces operative, can stop them/divDIV /divDIVAfter years of being presumed dead, Palestine’s most feared terrorist emerges from hiding with a plan for utter domination of the Middle East: the Shaitan Commandment. With a quartet of the region’s deadliest soldiers, he puts into motion a scheme that spells doom for the Western world. His target is not Israel, but Israel’s protector: the United States./divDIV /divDIVOn their trail is Alabaster, an Israeli special-forces agent whose true identity is buried under so many layers of deception that not even the Mossad knows who he really is. But every terrorist has heard of him, and knows to be afraid. A ruthless investigator with no time for diplomatic niceties, he may be all that stands between the United States and oblivion./divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Jon Land including rare photos from the author’s personal collection./div

A trio of pulse-pounding thrillers from the USA Today–bestselling author and “one of the best all-out action writers in the business” (Los Angeles Review of Books). “Nobody writes action like Jon Land,” and in these three edge-of-your-seat international thrillers, the stakes have never been higher (John Lescroart). No wonder James Rollins says: “Jon Land proves yet again that suspense has a new king.” The Valhalla Testament: After his sister—an American undercover operative masquerading as a journalist in Nicaragua—is murdered and he is imprisoned, NFL running back Jamie Skylar must escape to the United States to warn the government of an impending terrorist attack. Vortex: Vietnam special-forces veteran Joshua Bane must wage a one-man war to stop a government conspiracy from completing a superweapon that could alter the very fabric of reality. Project Vortex would make the atom bomb look like a bow and arrow—and push the world into a devastating global conflict. The Doomsday Spiral: An Israeli special-forces operative whose true identity is buried under so many layers of deception that not even the Mossad knows who he really is, Alabaster may be all that stands between a terrorist plot targeting the US and total oblivion.

“Miller takes us on an exciting tour of postcolonial and world literature, guiding us through the literary maze of the real and the pretenders to the real.” —Ngugi wa Thiong’o, author of Wizard of the Crow Writing a new page in the surprisingly long history of literary deceit, Impostors examines a series of literary hoaxes, deceptions that involved flagrant acts of cultural appropriation. This book looks at authors who posed as people they were not, in order to claim a different ethnic, class, or other identity. These writers were, in other words, literary usurpers and appropriators who trafficked in what Christopher L. Miller terms the “intercultural hoax.” In the United States, such hoaxes are familiar. Forrest Carter’s The Education of Little Tree and JT LeRoy’s Sarah are two infamous examples. Miller’s contribution is to study hoaxes beyond our borders, employing a comparative framework and bringing French and African identity hoaxes into dialogue with some of their better-known American counterparts. In France, multiculturalism is generally eschewed in favor of universalism, and there should thus be no identities (in the American sense) to steal. However, as Miller demonstrates, this too is a ruse: French universalism can only go so far and do so much. There is plenty of otherness to appropriate. This French and Francophone tradition of imposture has never received the study it deserves. Taking a novel approach to this understudied tradition, Impostors examines hoaxes in both countries, finding similar practices of deception and questions of harm. “In this fascinating study of intercultural literary hoaxes, Christopher L. Miller provides a useful, brief history of American literary impostures as a backdrop for his investigation of France’s literary history of ‘ethnic usurpation.’” —Henry Louis Gates, Jr., New York Times–bestselling author

From Althusser's most prolific period, this book is destined to become a classic.

Thomson (independent scholar), writing of The Biographical Dictionary of Film (aka A Biographical Dictionary of the Cinema, 1975 edition), described it as "a personal, opinionated, and obsessive biographical dictionary of the cinema." Thirty-five years and several editions later, that description still holds true of this expanded work. The new dictionary summarizes salient facts about its subjects' lives and discusses their film credits in terms of the quality of the filmmakers' work. In ambition it has competitors, including Leslie Halliwell's various editions of Halliwell's Filmgoers Companion (12th ed., 1997) and Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies, edited by John Walker (4th ed., rev. and updated, 2006), which cover films and technical terms (categories not included in Thomson's), but whose entries are neutral and exceedingly brief. Additionally, Francophile Richard Roud's edited Cinema: A Critical Dictionary: The Major Filmmakers (2 v., 1980) is as passionate a work as Thomson's, but narrower in scope, with entries written by various experts, rather than only by Roud. Finally, the multivolume magnum opus The International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers (4th ed., 2000, ed. by T. Pendergast and S. Pendergast; 2nd ed., ed. by N. Thomas, v. 1, CH, May'91; 1st ed., ed. by C. Lyon, v.1-2, CH, Jan'85, v.3, CH, Apr'87, v.4-5, CH, Jun'88) covers everything--films, directors, actors, writers, and production artists--with generous, measured, scholarly entries and lavish illustrations. However, it looms large and heavy, unlike the handy one-volume work by Thomson. Arguably, Thomson's work, for its scope, is the most fun, the most convenient, and the most engaging title. All libraries supporting people interested in film should buy it. It will get lots of use and provide very good value for the money. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. General Readers; Lower-division Undergraduates; Upper-division Undergraduates; Graduate Students; Researchers/Faculty; Professionals/Practitioners. Reviewed by C. Hendershott.