The Club of Irreparable Optimists

Jean-Michel Guenassia — a writer who has rapidly gained popularity in recent years, the author of the novels «The Club of Irreparable Optimists», «The Amazing Life of Ernesto Che», and «Trick Death». Critics around the world unanimously recognized «The Club... of Irreparable Optimists» as a brilliant book, and French high school students awarded the author the Goncourt Prize.
The hero of the novel is twelve years old. Paris, the early 1960s, the notorious transitional age when everything — school, communication with parents, and life in general — is difficult. Michel Marigny is no different from his peers, except for his passion for photography and his selfless love for reading. He also has a secret refuge — the backroom of a Parisian bistro. There, strange people who have fled from countries separated from the free world by the Iron Curtain argue, yearn, and play chess while waiting for their fate to be decided. Surprisingly, it is here, in this little room, nicknamed the Club of Irreparable Optimists, that the power lines of the era intersect.