Bellos' big, exhaustive raccount of the life and works of one of France's most contreversial modern writers is a thorough insight, both into the family background, the struggles of a writer trying to make a living, and the works themselves. Perecs' books, peppered with clues, quizzes and games, are reinterpreted, giving the reader a new incentive to go back to the texts to more fully understand the author, as essentially a "normal" man.

Kadare sets out two stories, that slowly blur together. Not a traditional historical novel, this story helps explain the dichotomy between new ideas and old traditions in present day Albania.