THE LITTLE GIRL AND THE CIGARETTE
A novel by Benoit Duteurtre
PUB DATE 3/1/07 * 188 PAGES *  $14.95
ISBN 1-933633-12-3 Fiction / Deluxe Paperback Original

“What I admire most about The Little Girl and The Cigarette:
the clarity with which this novel unmasks the fundamental stupidity of our modern world; the black humor that transforms horror into a fascinating danse macabre.”  
             -- Milan Kundera

“A joy to read, as much as it is alarming”
             --Le Monde

“(Duteurtre) is a cultural bomb thrower.”
             --International Herald Tribune

A wicked satire about the chaos that results when there's a rule for everything.

In the over-legislated world of this outrageous black comedy, a death-row inmate becomes a darling of the media – and the tobacco conglomerates – after he demands his right to a final cigarette . . . in a smoke-free prison.

Meanwhile, a little girl accuses a petty municipal bureaucrat of sexual perversion when she catches him sneaking a cigarette. Incredulously, he realizes that in this world where children are not just kings, but tyrants, a cigarette could lead him to the electric chair. 

At the cutting edge of European fiction, controversial young author Benoit Duteurtre creates a world wildly askew, yet disconcertingly close to our own, in this daring, antic satire.