The Thread
Christophe Bourdin author Jeffrey Zuckerman translator
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Pushkin Press
Publishing:5th Nov '26
£12.99
This title is due to be published on 5th November, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
Christophe Bourdin was certain he would be the author of a single book. Diagnosed HIV-positive at the height of the epidemic in Paris, he began writing the exquisitely beautiful, painfully intense pages that would become The Thread. It begins with the hypochondriac days: days of obsessive hygiene, of microscopic attention to contamination, of seeing dangers everywhere. In serpentine sentences that capture the frenzied paranoia of the time, Bourdin recreates the consciousness of a young gay man whose world has suddenly become charged with threat. With his illness becoming manifest, the man writes a diary to record the passing of his final days. Beginning with searing intensity, the entries gradually become mixed with currents of fantasy and visions of an alternative future. First published in 1994, The Thread is appearing in English for the first time in a stunning translation by the prize-winning Jeffrey Zuckerman. Lucid and moving, it is an essential lost classic of AIDS literature.
A young man isolated first by fear of illness, then by illness itself, and finally by the certainty of his death, Christophe Bourdin nevertheless found a way of reaching us. It is deeply affecting to think of all those we have lost to early, lonely deaths during the AIDS catastrophe. It takes the breath away to hear one of them speak - so clearly, so concisely, and with so much sorrow. The Thread is a harrowing and beautiful book -- Keith Ridgway, author of 'Dooneen'
In the final years of his life, Christophe Bourdin found a way of doing in prose what Derek Jarman did on screen in Blue; he wrote AIDS from the inside, without shame, without fear and with extraordinary grace -- Neil Bartlett, author of 'Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall'
A heart-wrenching, acutely observed story about death, illness, and solitude. It is also a story about love, about holding on and letting go. Like Thomas Bernhard and Hervé Guibert before him, Bourdin masters the art of feverish writing. As both a literary work and a historical testimony, The Thread is too valuable to be overlooked in the way it has been until now * Benoît Loiseau, author of The Clinic *
Terribly powerful... The style and structure are stunning * Télérama *
This powerful testimony from the AIDS era fascinates with its chiselled and delicate form... Among the chronicles of those dreadful years, The Thread stands out * Zone Critique *
A lacerating little book-devoid of illusions but not of optimism * Le Monde *
ISBN: 9781805680390
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
176 pages