Fleeing a nameless war, a soldier emerges from the Mediterranean scrubland, filthy, exhausted and seeking refuge. A chance meeting forces him to rethink his journey, and the price he puts on a life. On 11 September 2001, aboard a small cruise ship near Berlin, a scientific conference pays tribute to the late Paul Heudeber, an East German mathematician, Buchenwald survivor, communist and anti-fascist whose commitment to his side of the Wall was unshaken by its collapse. The oblique pull between these two narratives - a cipher in itself - brings to light everything that is at stake in times of conflict: truth and deception, loyalty and betrayal, hope and despair. Superbly translated by Charlotte Mandell and told in Mathias Enard-s typically mesmerizing, inventive prose, The Deserters lays bare the ravages of war on the most intimate aspects of life - and asks what remains of our selves in its wreckage.
