HHhH


HHhH is the debut novel of French author Laurent Binet, published in 2010 by Grasset & Fasquelle. The book recounts Operation Anthropoid, the assassination of Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich in Prague during World War II. The novel was awarded the 2010 Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman.

Plot

The novel follows the history of the operation and the lives of its protagonists—Reinhard Heydrich and his assassins Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš. But it is also interlaced with the author's account of the process of researching and writing the book, his commentary about other literary and media treatments of the subject, and reflections about the extent to which the behavior of real people may of necessity be fictionalised in a historical novel.

Title

The title is an initialism for Himmlers Hirn heißt Heydrich, a quip about Heydrich said to have circulated in Nazi Germany. The title was suggested by Binet's publisher, Grasset, instead of the "too sci-fi" working title Opération Anthropoïde. The editor also requested the cut of about twenty pages criticizing Jonathan Littell's Les Bienveillantes, another novel about the SS in World War II that was awarded the Prix Goncourt in 2006. The Millions published the "missing pages" in 2012.

Translations

HHhH has been translated into more than twenty languages. The English translation by Sam Taylor was published in the US by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on 24 April 2012 and in the UK by Harvill Secker on 3 May 2012.

Film adaptation

directed a film adaptation of the novel, also known as The Man with the Iron Heart. It starred Jason Clarke, Rosamund Pike, Mia Wasikowska, Jack O'Connell and Jack Reynor.

Awards and honours