Much the same may be said of The 7th Function of Language, which is even funnier and more absurd, with equal measures of panache and daring. At the heart of a madcap narrative is the overwhelming ...

Laurent Binet’s first novel, “HHhH,” walked a bit of a tightrope. In writing metafiction about the attempted assassination of the Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich, Binet almost guaranteed that ...

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The document, Bayard learns, spells out a powerfully persuasive, "magical or incantatory" seventh function of language supposedly only hinted at by Russian linguist Roman Jakobson in his ...

In The 7th Function of Language, Laurent sets cultural studies and political intrigue on a dangerous collision course. As in his 2010 debut novel HHhH, in which he rewrote the story behind the ...