'In A Visit from Voltaire (2003), a comic novel by the American novelist Dinah Lee Kung, Voltaire visits and befriends an American mother-of-three living in Switzerland, and , in the tradition of the best self-help books, teaches her how to live a happy and full life.'
Cambridge Companion to Voltaire
Edited by Nicholas Cronk
A Comic Novel - About The Unlikeliest of Friends
When an American mother-of-three finds herself overwhelmed in her new home in Switzerland, a visitor pops up offering to cure her son’s asthma, her husband’s growing indifference, and her own resentment of life. Is he the village nutter or – as he claims – the greatest mind of the eighteenth century?
This talkative character wearing a wig and kneebreeches is the last straw. Though she begs him to go home, he unpacks his mouldy trunk instead. Slowly V. becomes her warmest friend as they laugh and quarrel, and he teaches her the best lesson of all – how to live life to its fullest.
Born in Detroit, Dinah Lee Küng worked for twenty years as a reporter in the Far East for The Economist, BusinessWeek, International Herald Tribune and The Washington Post. She now lives in Switzerland with her husband, a veteran of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and their three children.
'A mix of the real and the surreal, a combination of fact and fiction and a hint of the American experiencing Switzerland, written in a straightforward and entertaining style...' Swiss News
'... a picaresque domestic romp... disastrously funny...' The Correspondent
'Beneath the surface of a light-hearted comedy, Dinah Lee Küng addresses a wide range of serious questions - how much energy and passion is put into any lasting literary work, how literary friendships are never free from jealousy and what posterity and ideals really mean.
London Student
Dinah Lee Küng's new novel Under Their Skin is now out.
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