{"product_id":"idiocy-9781681379197","title":"Idiocy","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn audacious, unabashedly transgressive memoir about two acts of escape by the author: breaking from his family to seek a freer life in Paris and then, later, deserting the French military during the Algerian War.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ePierre Guyotat was one of the most radical and uncompromising writers of the twentieth century, a literary successor to Sade, Bataille, and Genet whose visceral fictions and bold experiments with language have earned him cult status in France and abroad. \u003ci\u003eIdiocy\u003c\/i\u003e is his searing memoir of coming of age between 1958 and 1962, when he discovered his burgeoning sexuality and aptitude for rebellion--first against his father, whom he escaped to become a writer in Paris, then against the French military authorities as a conscript in the Algerian War. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eGuyotat recounts the atrocities he witnessed first-hand in Algeria, as well as his own harrowing experience of being arrested for inciting desertion and imprisoned in a hole in the ground for three months. Guyotat wields his language like a scalpel, merciless in his exploration of human brutality in all its horrible, granular detail. Yet his generous depictions of camaraderie and friendship are just as unflinching. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe winner of the 2018 Prix Médicis, \u003ci\u003eIdiocy \u003c\/i\u003eis an incisive condemnation of violence and colonialism, and a bracing, hallucinatory late masterpiece from a writer hailed by Edmund White as \"one of the few geniuses of our day.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e New York Review of Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 10\/28\/2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781681379197\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 208\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.81lbs","brand":"Pierre Guyotat","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51634896928949,"sku":"9781681379197","price":15.26,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/files\/img_2203abdd-77dc-42c9-ab60-64c5bb71dbd9.jpg?v=1756789409","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/idiocy-9781681379197","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}