The Dance of a Sham

The narrator of this novel begins by introducing himself not as a speaker but a listener, spellbound by his friend Caracala’s yarns, which blend accounts of youthful mischief with casual references to Cervantes and Laurence Sterne. At first, the spotlight is entirely on Caracala, but the narrator soon begins to distrust his friend, concluding that Caracala is no more than a sham: a performer. Yet the reader will in turn come to doubt the narrator’s own pretensions to honesty, until every source of information has become so unreliable as to make the very notion of a ＂true story＂ seem like blatant propaganda.

Paul Emond was born in Brussels in 1944. After obtaining his doctorate at the University of Louvain, he spent three years in Czechoslovakia and wrote his first novel. Returning to Belgium, he worked for the Archives et us?es de la litt?rature in Brussels, eventually becoming a professor at the Institut des Arts de Diffusion, where he teaches today. An accomplished dramatist as well as fiction writer, Emond’s first play debuted in 1986, with more than fifteen to follow, these being performed in numerous countries around the world.