Original title Un homme qui dort Country France Publication date 1967 Originally published 1967 Page count 167 | Translator Andrew Leak Published in English 1990 Publisher Éditions Denoël | |
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Preceded by Which Moped with Chrome-plated Handlebars at the Back of the Yard? Works by Georges Perec Things: A Story of the Sixties, Life a User's Manual, A Void, W - or the Memory of Childhood, Which Moped with Chrome | ||
A Man Asleep (French: Un homme qui dort) is a 1967 novel by the French writer Georges Perec. It uses a second-person narrative, and follows a 25-year-old student, who one day decides to be indifferent about the world. A Man Asleep was adapted into a 1974 film, The Man Who Sleeps.
Contents
Publication
The novel was published in France through Éditions Denoël in 1967. An English translation by Andrew Leak was published in 1990 through David R. Godine, Publisher, in a shared volume with Perec's first novel, Things: A Story of the Sixties.
Reception
Upon the American release, Richard Eder of the Los Angeles Times compared the two novels of the volume—Things and A Man Asleep—, and wrote that Things was "the more engaging of the two, though less focused and ultimately, perhaps, less memorable." He wrote that in A Man Asleep, "Perec shows a beauty on the far side of the void; a humanity on the far side of refusal."