a fine Egyptian exile who wrote in French,
which was Received on Feb 12 2012 by the Ballard Branch
of Seattle Public Library, was sold to me
in Northern Ireland in December of that year,
marked 'No Longer Property of Seattle Public Library'.
The translation is excellent. It must have been a gift
to Seattle Public Library (Ballard Branch)
which was then passed on to a secondhand-bookstore.
Maybe they already had a copy - and one copy
of a sardonic novella was enough within their many walls.
(Public Libraries in France do not accept donations.
I know because I wanted to present the local médiathèque
with a facsimile edition of the Book of Kells.)
Better to donate a book to a dealer than to a library !
Here are some bons mots from that last book by Albert Cossery:
‘A diploma is a certain step to slavery.’
‘True immorality: stealing without risk.’
'One always learns something from rubbing shoulders with infamy.'
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