Jean Dutourd's A Dog's Head
 is a wonderful piece of magical realism, reminiscent of Voltaire, 
Borges and Kafka. With biting wit, Dutourd presents the story of Edmund 
Du Chaillu, a boy born, to his bourgeois parents's horror, with the head
 of a spaniel. Edmund must endure his school-mate's teasing as well as 
an urge to carry a newspaper in his mouth. This is the story of his 
life, trials, and joys as he searches for a normal life of worth and 
love. "Dutourd is a fine craftsman, whose work has the classic 
virtues of brevity, lucidity, and concentration. He has written a 
sardonic divertissement that concerns itself with fundamental problems 
of man's existence-a tale that is sad-eyed, witty, and often very 
funny."—Charles J. Rolo, New York Times Book Review "A 
tiny masterpiece in the French classical tradition. . . . Stylish, 
elegant and witty, and told with an apparent lightheartedness that 
points to rather than obscures the hero's essential tragedy."—P. L. 
Travers, New York Herald Tribune "Wit, a good deal of shrewd classical allusion, and a Voltarian satire are the book's assets."—Edmund Fuller, Chicago Tribune "The
 work of an expert craftsman and of a careful writer of prose, ending 
with the rarest gift in modern letters: the comic spirit."—Henri Peyre, The Saturday Review "Dutourd
 might well have dropped his story at this point, had it been his 
intention simply to excoriate the human race for its treatment of those 
who are physically afflicted. Instead, he presses on in his terse, 
deadpan prose to teach a lesson to the afflicted of the world as well."—Time "A Dog's Head is one of the most curious, most beautifully conceived and written fantasies you've ever come across."—J. H. Jackson, San Francisco Chronicle "A Dog's Head is an excellent joke in the worst possible taste, and its author, M. Jean Dutourd, is a satirist of the first rank."—New Yorker

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