The Art of Losing (book)

The Art of Losing (original French title: L'Art de perdre) is a 2017 novel by Alice Zeniter, translated from French to English by Frank Wynne, which won the International Dublin Literary Award in 2022. The novel demystifies the Algerian War. It is Zeniter's fifth book and the second translated in English. The Art of Losing is also the recipient of the 2017 Prix Goncourt des Lycéens, Porte Dorée Literary Prize and Le Monde’s Literary Prize.

Reception
Grace Byron in The Observer called it "...a book that requires rapt attention. It is a novel that scales the walls of history and excavates lessons with curiosity and anger... The Art of Losing is a visceral book. It does not shy away from writing history in shades of gray, nor does it glamorize those who fought for Algerian independence. "

Angelique Chrisafis in The Guardian wrote "The book reflects the current thirst in French storytelling for writers of mixed heritage to address parts of history and society that have been left untold."

Liesl Schillinger wrote in The Washington Street Journal that "Zeniter’s extraordinary achievement is to transform a complicated conflict into a compelling family chronicle, rich in visual detail and lustrous in language. Her storytelling, splendidly translated by Frank Wynne, carries the reader through different generations, cities, cultures, and mindsets without breaking its spell…"

Boyd Tonkin in The Spectator said the novel "show[s] how tough a task awaits any reconciler of the past’s mangled accounts. Not only, as Alice Zeniter’s heroine Naïma reflects in The Art of Losing, has each community ‘reached an agreement on the version of history that suited them', but internal rifts fragment them."