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Paul Edward Theroux

    Paul Theroux est un maître de l'écriture de voyage et de la fiction, transportant les lecteurs aux confins du monde. Ses œuvres explorent souvent la tension entre le foyer et l'aliénation, examinant les rencontres culturelles et la nature humaine dans des environnements exotiques. Le style incisif et l'observation acérée de Theroux offrent un aperçu convaincant du voyage et de la vie elle-même. Sa prose est riche en descriptions vivantes et en réflexions perspicaces, révélant les complexités de l'expérience humaine.

    The Old Patagonian Express
    The Pillars of Hercules
    Riding the Iron Rooster
    De vreemdeling in het Palazzo d'Oro
    Lower River
    The Elephanta Suite
    • Moederland

      Roman

      • 622pages
      • 22 heures de lecture

      Paul Theroux' geboortegrond Cape Cod en een ongelukkig gezin met zeven kinderen dat heel erg lijkt op het gezin waarin hij opgroeide vormen het decor van zijn nieuwe roman Moederland. Theroux richt zijn waarnemersogen en -oren op een tolstojaanse familie waarin moeder de scepter zwaait. Voor de buitenwereld is ze het toonbeeld van vroomheid, nijverheid en vlijt. Voor haar echtgenoot en zeven kinderen is ze de egoïstische, kleinzielige alleenheerser over Moederland, de koningin die regeert met een succesvol verdeel-en-heersbeleid. Terwijl de jaren voorbij sjokken, en moeder tot ieders verbijstering de honderd nadert, proberen de kinderen zich met wisselend succes aan haar wurggreep te ontworstelen. Moederland is een scherp portret van het narcisme van een ouder- en hoe dit een gezin te gronde dreigt te richten.

      Moederland2017
      3,4
    • Lower River

      • 323pages
      • 12 heures de lecture

      Ellis Hock never believed that he would return to Africa. He runs an old-fashioned menswear store in a small town in Massachusetts but still dreams of his Eden, the four years he spent in Malawi with the Peace Corps, cut short when he had to return to take over the family business. When his wife leaves him, and he is on his own, he realizes that there is one place for him to go: back to his village in Malawi, on the remote Lower River, where he can be happy again. Arriving at the dusty village, he finds it transformed: the school he built is a ruin, the church and clinic are gone, and poverty and apathy have set in among the people. They remember him--the White Man with no fear of snakes--and welcome him. But is his new life, his journey back, an escape or a trap? Interweaving memory and desire, hope and despair, salvation and damnation, this is a hypnotic, compelling, and brilliant return to a terrain about which no one has ever written better than Theroux.

      Lower River2012
      3,8
    • Een dode hand

      Een moord in Calcutta - druk 1

      • 317pages
      • 12 heures de lecture

      Als Jerry Delfont, een reisschrijver met een writer's block, een brief ontvangt van een Amerikaanse filantroop, Mrs. Merrill Unger, met daarin het bericht over een schandaal waarin een Indiase vriend van haar zoon is verwikkeld, voelt hij plotseling de enorme behoefte deze zaak tot op de bodem uit te zoeken. Want wie is de jongen die dood gevonden is op de vloer van een goedkope hotelkamer? Hoe, en vooral waarom, is hij doodgegaan, en zal deze auteur ' die bij Mrs. Unger hoog in het vaandel staat ' erachter komen wat er nu echt gebeurd is? Jerry is al snel geboeid door de mooie, mysterieuze Mrs. Unger ' wier tantrische massage hem doet herleven ' maar de omstandigheden rond de dode jongen doen hem twijfelen over de precieze aard van haar liefdadigheid. In heldere beschrijvingen en met een scherp observerend oog vertelt Theroux een duister verhaal over noodzaak en obsessie.

      Een dode hand2009
      2,8
    • Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

      • 492pages
      • 18 heures de lecture

      The book is a travelogue by American novelist Paul Theroux. It recounts Theroux's four-month journey by train in 1973 from London through Europe, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, and his return via the Trans-Siberian Railway.

      Ghost Train to the Eastern Star2008
      4,0
    • De poort naar India

      • 318pages
      • 12 heures de lecture

      Drie lange verhalen over de belevenissen en ervaringen van verschillende Amerikanen in India, waardoor hun kijk op het land drastisch verandert.

      De poort naar India2007
    • Spelende meisjes

      • 238pages
      • 9 heures de lecture

      Op een kostschool in Kenia is de komst van een nieuwe, Britse leerlinge aanleiding tot spanningen tussen de blanke onderwijzeressen.

      Spelende meisjes2007
    • The Elephanta Suite

      • 277pages
      • 10 heures de lecture

      This startling, far-reaching book captures the tumult, ambition, hardship, and serenity that mark today’s India. Theroux’s Westerners risk venturing far beyond the subcontinent’s well-worn paths to discover woe or truth or peace. A middle-aged couple on vacation veers heedlessly from idyll to chaos. A buttoned-up Boston lawyer finds succor in Mumbai’s reeking slums. And a young woman befriends an elephant in Bangalore. We also meet Indian characters as singular as they are reflective of the country’s subtle ironies: an executive who yearns to become a holy beggar, an earnest striver whose personality is rewired by acquiring an American accent, a miracle-working guru, and others. As ever, Theroux’s portraits of people and places explode stereotypes to exhilarating effect. The Elephanta Suite is a welcome gift to readers of international fiction and fans of this extraordinary writer.

      The Elephanta Suite2007
      3,6
    • Hotel Honolulu

      • 476pages
      • 17 heures de lecture

      Een Amerikaanse schrijver begint een nieuw leven als hotelmanager op Hawaiï en observeert de levens van de hotelgasten en personeelsleden.

      Hotel Honolulu2003
    • The Pillars of Hercules

      • 544pages
      • 20 heures de lecture

      At the gateway to the Mediterranean lie the two Pillars of Hercules: Gibraltar and Ceuta, in Morocco. Paul Theroux decided to travel from one to the other taking the long way round. He travels by a dilapidated taxi, smoke-filled bus, bicycle and even a cruise-liner. This eventful tour aims to evoke the essence of Mediterranean life.

      The Pillars of Hercules2003
      4,0
    • Frisse lucht

      reisverhalen 1985-1999

      • 526pages
      • 19 heures de lecture

      Verzameling autobiografische stukken, reisverhalen en essays.

      Frisse lucht2000
    • De laatste dagen van Hongkong

      • 238pages
      • 9 heures de lecture

      For Neville "Bunt" Mullard and his mother, Betty, Hong Kong is part of Britain - one of the pleasanter parts; it is also cozy, monotonous, profitable, and homely. Now ninety-nine years of colonial rule are about to end, and the British government is about to hand over Hong Kong to China. Betty and Bunt can see China from their parlor, but they have never been there. They detest Chinese food. "The Chinese take-away, " as they call the Hand-over, does not particularly concern them. When Bunt first meets Mr. Hung, a well-spoken gentleman from the Chinese mainland, he pays him little heed. And when Mr. Hung offers the Mullards a handsome sum for their family business - a fifty-year-old textile factory, Imperial Stitching, that was cofounded by Bunt's late father - Bunt refuses him out of hand. Yet it soon grows clear that Mr. Hung is different from the Chinese the Mullards have lived alongside for years. For Mr. Hung will accept no refusals. Then a young woman from the Mullards' factory vanishes, one of many disappearances. But this one is different. Ah Fu has last been seen in the company of Mr. Hung. And so Bunt is forced for the first time in his forty-three years to make decisions that matter. He even begins, maybe, to discover love. Yet against all of Bunt's good, if half-formed, intentions are pitted the will of Mr. Hung and the looming threat of the ultimate betrayal.

      De laatste dagen van Hongkong1997
      3,1
    • Riding the Iron Rooster

      By train through China

      • 464pages
      • 17 heures de lecture

      Describes the author's travels by train in every province of the People's Republic of China.

      Riding the Iron Rooster1997
      4,1
    • Mijn andere ik

      • 464pages
      • 17 heures de lecture

      In denkbeeldige herinneringen vertelt de auteur over ontmoetingen en gebeurtenissen in zijn leven, in zijn huwelijk en in zijn werk als schrijver.

      Mijn andere ik1996
    • The Old Patagonian Express

      • 448pages
      • 16 heures de lecture

      Beginning his journey in Boston, where he boarded the subway commuter train, Paul Theroux travelled the length of North and South America, to his destination in Patagonia. In this book he vividly evokes the contrasts of his journey.

      The Old Patagonian Express1994
      4,0
    • One of the world's premier travel writers launches his most exotic and tantalizing adventure yet, as he kayaks the shimmering Pacific, exploring the islands, and taking up residence to discover the secrets of these happy isles.

      The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific1992
      4,0
    • Chicago Loop

      • 183pages
      • 7 heures de lecture

      He knifes silently through the shadows of the steamy Chicago summer night, prowling for lonely souls who need his help. The desperate come to him, answering his ads with promises of romantic evenings and possibly a future, never suspecting that they are the prey, chosen to satiate a twisted sexual desire. Parker Jagoda is also a successful businessman with a wife, a child, and a house in the suburbs--respectable, health-conscious, and polite. Nobody knows about his jagged double life, his dark, hungry obsessions. He has fooled everyone except those who gasp their last dying scream. And, of course, he has not fooled himself - which may be the only glimmer of hope left inside the darkest of hearts....

      Chicago Loop1991
      2,9
    • After eleven years as an American living in London, the renowned travel writer Paul Theroux set out to travel clockwise around the coast of Great Britain to find out what the British were really like. The result is this perceptive, hilarious record of the journey. Whether in Cornwall or Wales, Ulster or Scotland, the people he encountered along the way revealed far more of themselves than they perhaps intended to display to a stranger. Theroux captured their rich and varied conversational commentary with caustic wit and penetrating insight.

      The Kingdom by the Sea1991
      3,4
    • The Mosquito Coast

      • 384pages
      • 14 heures de lecture

      Allie Fox is going to re-create the world. Abominating the cops, crooks, junkies and scavengers of modern America, he abandons civilization and takes the family to live in the Honduran jungle. There his tortured, messianic genius keeps them alive, his hoarse tirades harrying them through a diseased and dirty Eden towards unimaginable darkness. �An epic of paranoid obsession that swirls the reader headlong to deposit him on a mudbank of horror� Christopher Wordsworth, Guardian.

      The Mosquito Coast1991
      3,8
    • Mijn geheime leven

      • 494pages
      • 18 heures de lecture

      Deels autobiografisch relaas over het leven van een Amerikaan vanaf zijn vijftiende jaar tot aan de nadering van de middelbare leeftijd.

      Mijn geheime leven1990
    • Doctor Slaughter

      • 137pages
      • 5 heures de lecture

      Een jonge Amerikaanse leidt in Londen een hachelijk dubbelleven bij een escort-service.

      Doctor Slaughter1985
    • Presents the stories of the author's epic journey by rail through India and Asia. This book features The Direct-Orient Express, the Khyber Pass Local, the Delhi Mail from Jaipur, the Golden Arrow to Kuala Lumpur and the Trans-Siberian Express. It describes the huge variety of places and people, foods, faiths and cultures.

      The Great Railway Bazaar1973
      3,9