La trilogie des jumeaux Series by Ágota Kristóf

"With icy dispassion, first novelist Kristof, herself a refugee of war, spins a modern-day fable set in Eastern Europe during WW II. It records, in the form of a notebook written by two small boys, the nightmarish ordeal of twins brought by their mother from the bomb-spattered Big Town to their grandmother's home in Little Town. Grandmother, whom they call the Witch, harbors the boys only because they may prove useful... more"With icy dispassion, first novelist Kristof, herself a refugee of war, spins a modern-day fable set in Eastern Europe during WW II. It records, in the form of a notebook written by two small boys, the nightmarish ordeal of twins brought by their mother from the bomb-spattered Big Town to their grandmother's home in Little Town. Grandmother, whom they call the Witch, harbors the boys only because they may prove useful. But they are wilier than she, spying on her through holes in the floor of the attic she can no longer reach, deliberately wounding each other to inure themselves to pain, learning the language of the occupying forces." (amazon) less

When his twin brother Claus escapes across the frontier, Lucas is left to face a bleak existence in a post-war totalitarian state, "doing what has to be done in order to live". But all those he encounters, like himself, suffer an inner loss which primes them for ultimate tragedy.

In the third volume in a critically acclaimed trilogy that also includes The Proof and The Notebook, Claus lies dying in a prison in the town of his birth, reminiscing about the past and his missing twin and haunted by three lies that have profoundly affected his life.

These three internationally acclaimed novels have confirmed Agota Kristof's reputation as one of the most provocative exponents of new-wave European fiction. With all the stark simplicity of a fractured fairy tale, the trilogy tells the story of twin brothers, Claus and Lucas, locked in an agonizing bond that becomes a gripping allegory of the forces that have divided "brothers" in much of Europe since World War II... moreThese three internationally acclaimed novels have confirmed Agota Kristof's reputation as one of the most provocative exponents of new-wave European fiction. With all the stark simplicity of a fractured fairy tale, the trilogy tells the story of twin brothers, Claus and Lucas, locked in an agonizing bond that becomes a gripping allegory of the forces that have divided "brothers" in much of Europe since World War II. Kristof's postmodern saga begins with The Notebook, in which the brothers are children, lost in a country torn apart by conflict, who must learn every trick of evil and cruelty merely to survive. In The Proof, Lucas is challenging to prove his own identity and the existence of his missing brother, a defector to the "other side." The Third Lie, which closes the trilogy, is a biting parable of Eastern and Western Europe today and a deep exploration into the nature of identity, storytelling, and the truths and untruths that lie at the heart of them all. "Stark and haunting." - The San Francisco Chronicle; "A vision of considerable depth and complexity, a powerful portrait of the nobility and perversity of the human heart." - The Christian Science Monitor. less