Book cover for Heartsnatcher by Boris Vian

Heartsnatcher

Boris Vian
2003 Released
245 Pages
4-6 Hours
Ebook Unavailable
Audiobook Unavailable
Hardback Unavailable
Dalkey Archive PressISBN 9781564782991
Translated by Stanley Chapman
Set in a bizarre and slightly sinister town where the elderly are auctioned off at an Old Folks Fair, the townspeople assail the priest in hopes of making it rain, and the official town scapegoat bears the shame of the citizens by fishing junk out of the river with his teeth.

Heartsnatcher is both Boris Vian's most playful and most serious work. The main character is Clementine, a mother who punishes her husband for causing her the excruciating pain of giving birth to three babies. As they age, she becomes increasingly obsessed with protecting them, going so far as to build an invisible wall around their property.

Boris Vian

More by Boris Vian

Mood Indigo
Blues for a Black Cat & Other Stories
Vercoquin and the Plankton
Trouble in the Swaths
Autumn in Peking

Stanley Chapman

Translated by

Stanley Chapman was a British architect, designer, writer, and translator, most notably of Vian ("Mood Indigo") and Raymond Queneau. He was the founder of Outrapo and a member of Oulipo, the College de 'Pataphysique (of which Vian was also a member), and the Lewis Carroll Society. He died in 2009.

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