Judith and Antoine were lovers for a brief time. Then, suddenly, brutally, it ended. Nine years later, they meet again and attempt to revive their old passion. They dream of rewriting their history and burning the memories that are still troubling their souls. But each remains obsessed with the other’s past and the beautiful dream transforms itself little by little into a prison, a shared bout of craziness into which even the reader finds himself irresistibly drawn. Eventually, the couple’s shared madness and jealousy turns homicidal. Kattan writes evocatively about the human heart, as well as the lethal nature of sexual passion.

Born in Montreal, Emmanuel Kattan graduated with a Master’s of Philosophy from the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris. For four years, he served as the Public Affairs Advisor to the Secretary General of the Commonwealth of London and he is now a communications manager at the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. In addition to his novel Love Alone, Kattan is the author of Duty to Remember (2002, PUF, University Presses of France) an analysis of the ‘politics of memory’ in post-Second World War France. He has two teenage sons, Benjamin and Jeremy.

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Love Alone strikes with its analytical strength and the subtlety of its sentimental reflections, which evoke Proust and Stendhal. In a masterly fashion, Emmanuel Kattan dissects the human psyche and, without compromise, follows his tale of extremity, which heads toward a morbid end.

Elsa Pepi, Ici

A deep and original work that has already established itself as one of the mustread books of this season.

Le Libraire

A sweeping love story...tragic, as it should be.

Danielle Laurin, Le Devoir