Select delivery location
See All Buying Options
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the authors

Jean-Jacques Schuhl
+ Follow
Michael Pye
+ Follow
See all
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Ingrid Caven: A Novel Paperback – June 1, 2004

by Jean-Jacques Schuhl (Author), Michael Pye (Translator)
See all formats and editions

A novel about the life of German cabaret singer and film actress Ingrid Caven, who was once director Rainer Werner Fassbinder's star, and his wife, muse to Yves Saint Laurent and a protege of Pierre Berge. Consisting of memories, mixing real and invented people and events, Ingrid Caven reveals the cold heart of the European counterculture of the 1970s, an era of celebrity glitz, cocaine-fueled excess, gay bathhouses and young idealists-turned-terrorists. Ingrid Caven was an immediate bestseller in France, where it sold over 235,000 copies in its first year of publication. It has been translated into 18 languages.

Read more Read less
Previous page
  1. Print length
    250 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    City Lights Publishers
  4. Publication date
    June 1, 2004
  5. Dimensions
    5 x 0.6 x 7.9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0872864278
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0872864276
  8. See all details
Next page
The Amazon Book Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Adolf Hitler, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Yves Saint Laurent—German-born cabaret singer Ingrid Caven's life flowed around these icons of 20th century European counterculture . . . a collage of that strange postwar period in Europe of high artifice, drugs, terrorism, leather jackets and cinema."—Los Angeles Times Book Review

"The novel . . . could be read as an intimate, literary dialogue between France and Germany (Caven is German and Schuhl is French and Jewish). That such a dialogue can be embodied in a single female character as seen through the eyes of her lover is a testament to Schuhl's originality and narrative imagination."—Speakeasy

" . . . a semifictional 2000 Prix Goncourt winner about the vagaries of 1970s European counterculture . . . Schuhl's staccato yet contemplative prose (transl. from the French by Michael Pye) illuminates celebrity excesses against a decadent and violent world backdrop."—Publishers Weekly

"[Ingrid Caven in] . . . her many metamorphoses: a bohemian Madame Bovary, a redheaded noir vamp, an aristocrat in a boa, a singing sleepwalker."—Frédéric Bonnaud, Les Inrockuptibles

"Magnificent and violent, strange and disquieting. Provocative and harshly moving."—Josyane Savigneau, Le Monde Livres

About the Author

Jean-Jacques Schuhl is a Parisian dandy who lives with Ingrid Caven and who had not published a book for twenty years until this one.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ City Lights Publishers (June 1, 2004)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 250 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0872864278
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0872864276
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.6 x 7.9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:

About the authors

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Previous page
  1. Jean-Jacques Schuhl

    Jean-Jacques Schuhl

    Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
    Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

    Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

    See more on the author's page
  2. Michael Pye

    Michael Pye

    Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
    Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

    Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

    See more on the author's page
Next page

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
2 global ratings

No customer reviews

There are 0 customer reviews and 2 customer ratings.