Shhh

Shhh is Federman's last novel and was only published posthumously in English in 2010. The text is a "self-transaction" and expansion of the French version of the novel, Chut (2008). Shhh was originally uttered in French as chut by Federman's mother the day she pushed her son into the closet in July 1942. More than 65 years and thousands of pages of prose and poetry later, the signifier shhh is the last word of Federman's final novel, with the ending and the beginning of his life-story merging into one another: "what I'm in the process of telling is the final chapter of the great story I've been muttering and scribbling for the past forty years."

RAYMOND FEDERMAN (1928-2009) was born in Paris, France. When he was fourteen years old, his parents and two sisters were arrested during the 1942 roundup and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp for extermination. The boy survived because his mother had pushed him into a closet. After World War II, Federman emigrated to the USA, where he eventually became one of the most radical thinkers, critics, and influential authors of contemporary literature. In different versions, both in English and in French, he narrates the life story of a man called "Federman," always trying to decipher the gesture of his mother that saved his life. Federman received the American Book Award and his books have been translated into 14 languages.