A story of displacement and resistance during the early days of the Nazi occupation of France.Last Times, Victor Serge’s epic novel of the fall of France, is based—like much of his fiction—on firsthand experience. The author was an eyewitness to the last days of Paris in June 1940 and joined the chaotic mass exodus south to the unoccupied zone on foot with nothing but his manuscripts. He found himself trapped in Marseille under the Vichy government, a persecuted, stateless Russian, and participated in the early French Resistance before escaping on the last ship to the Americas in 1941.Exiled in Mexico City, Serge poured his recent experience into a fast-moving, gripping novel aimed at an American audience. The book begins in a near-deserted Paris abandoned by the government, the suburbs already noisy with gunfire. Serge’s anti-fascist protagonists join the flood of refugees fleeing south on foot, in cars loaded with household goods, on bikes, pushing carts and prams under the strafing Stukas, and finally make their way to wartime Marseille. Last Times offers a vivid eyewitness account of the city’s criminal underground and no less criminal Vichy authorities, of collaborators and of the growing resistance, of crowds of desperate refugees competing for the last visa and the last berth on the last—hoped-for—ship to the New World.
✔ Author(s): Victor Serge,Richard Greeman,Ralph Manheim
✔ Title: Last Times (New York Review Books Classics)
✔ Rating : 4.4 out of 5 base on (34 reviews)
✔ ISBN-10: 1681375141
✔ ISBN-13: 9781681375144
✔ Language: English
✔ Format ebook: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, Audio, HTML and MOBI
✔ Device compatibles: Android, iOS, PC and Amazon Kindle
Readers' opinions about Last Times by Victor Serge
Beata Shepard
What a rollercoaster of emotions! I laughed, cried, and everything in between. The author's ability to evoke such raw feelings is truly commendable. It's a story that will stay with me forever.
Elaine Leonard
The way this book explored the complexities of human nature and relationships was both profound and relatable. It touched my heart in ways I didn't expect.
Laura Hill
I'm already planning to reread this book. It's one of those stories that you can revisit again and again, discovering new layers of meaning each time.
