From the Archives: To the Winner Goes the Prosciutto

By Susan Harris

Jean-Philippe Toussaint's Self-Portrait Abroad collects the Belgian writer's impressions of his travels to destinations as diverse as Kyoto, Berlin, Hanoi, and Prague. The extract published in our issue of April 2006, "Cap Corse (The Best Day of My Life)," describes an afternoon on Corsica that starts with an alfresco lunch and ends with a parade celebrating Toussaint's victory in a boules tournament. His reward is a Corsican prosciutto, the word for which—prizuttu—neatly alludes to its role here.