Tom Lanoye

Slaves to Fortune

Tom Lanoye

"Two men discover they share more than just a name in this Belgian bestseller from Flemish author Tom Lanoye." -[i] Kirkus Reviews Two Belgian exiles, both called Tony Hanssen, are on the run from their former lives on different continents. In Buenos Aires one of the Tony Hanssens, a former cruise director, is playing a dangerous game as a toy boy to the elderly wife of a wealthy Chinese businessman. In South Africa a totally different Tony Hanssen, a computer specialist running from a crashed merchant bank, breaks into a game reserve with a precision rifle and war ammunition. Amid the chaos of global capitalism, lawlessness, and disintegrating lives, a chance meeting between the two Hanssens gives each the chance to redeem himself by betraying the other. This societal satire with a classic doppelganger motif tackles current topics such as the global financial crisis with scathing humor.

Speechless

Tom Lanoye

Humor, pain and copious amounts of love run throughout this critically acclaimed novel by Tom Lanoye that sold almost 135,000 copies in Holland and Belgium alone. Both brave and honest, Speechless is a poignant homage to Lanoye’s late mother, Josée. Flamboyant, proud and dominant, Josée is unrecognizable after suffering a stroke, which strips her of the ability to speak and express herself with the expansiveness for which she was known. With style and grace, Lanoye weaves together autobiography, testimony and fiction to recount the last years of his mother’s life and the years before her stroke. Harnessing his power as a playwright and dexterity as a poet, Lanoye employs rich prose to paint a colorful picture of growing up and coming to terms with his homosexuality. Speechless is compellingly translated from the Dutch by Paul Vincent, whose skillful translation complements Lanoye’s rich style.