DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

The Mahé Circle

Georges Simenon author Siân Reynolds translator

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Penguin Books Ltd

Published:5th Jun '14

Should be back in stock very soon

The Mahé Circle cover

'Powerful . . .unputdownably gripping' Guardian

'The island itself. Its throbbing heat as if in a belljar under the sun, the scorpion in his son's bed, the deafening sound of cicadas'


During his first holiday on the island of Porquerolles Dr Mahé caught a glimpse of something irresistible. As the memory continues to haunt him, he falls prey to a delusion that may offer an escape from his conventional existence - or may destroy him. This is the first English translation of The Mahé Circle, Simenon's dark, malevolent depiction of an ordinary man trapped in mundanity and consumed by obsession.

'Extraordinary . . . Simenon is one of the most important writers of the 20th century' Independent

One of Georges Simenon's most powerful roman durs - the non-Maigret novels in which ordinary lives are suddenly, and at times seemingly inexplicably, unsettled and irrevocably changed. Written in Simenon's spare signature style, it's unputdownably gripping -- John Gray * Guardian *
Sublime . . . as good, in its unforced and unemphatic way, as anything in Proust or even Flaubert . . . a sort of masterpiece -- John Banville * New York Review of Books *
Extraordinary . . . Simenon is one of the most important writers of the 20th century . . . In 150 high-pressure pages, it gives insights into the world, the mind and the horrible frustration of a French country doctor that most writers would struggle to convey with 10 times the word-count -- Sam Jordison * Independent *

ISBN: 9780141394169

Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 8mm

Weight: 123g

160 pages