7.2 /10 1 Votes
Originally published 20 August 2003 | 3.6/5 Goodreads | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Awards Prix Interallié, Goncourt List, Poland's Choice Nominations Prix Goncourt, Prix Goncourt des Lycéens Similar Frédéric Beigbeder books, Other books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Windows on the World a novel written by Frédéric Beigbeder was first published in France in 2003. The English translation by Frank Wynne was released March 30, 2005 by Miramax Books.
Contents
Plot summary
The novel alternates between two voices: the first Carthew Yorsten, a Texan realtor accompanied by his two sons (ages 7 and 9) who are having a tourist-style breakfast at Windows on the World restaurant on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center on the morning of the September 11 attacks; the second, the voice of the author writing the story while having breakfast at a restaurant atop a Paris skyscraper (Tour Montparnasse). Each chapter, averaging three pages a piece, represents one minute from 8.30 am - just before the time the building is hit at 8:46am - to 10.29, just after its collapse at 10:28am.
Prizes
The novel debuted at No 2 on the French best seller list and won the prestigious Prix Interallié in 2003.
It won the 2005 Independent Prize for Foreign Fiction awarded by the British newspaper.
Independent literary editor and judge Boyd Tonkin said: "Frederic Beigbeder's winning novel pulls off the impossible - it creates fiction about the tragedy of 11 September and our responses to it,"