4 New Bold Fiction Titles by French Women
This season, we’ve read a series of bold and remarkable fiction by women novelists. Prix Fémina laureate Claudie Hunzinger, Nadia Yala Kisukidi, Gaëlle Obiégly, Jane Sautière have been exploring uncharted territories of fiction. For some, this engagement has spanned most of their career, for others, this is just a beginning. But in every case, the result is nothing short of a sparkling accomplishment!
Reading List
When it comes to Gaëlle Obiégly’s novels, it’s always a fine balancing act. It’s not a matter of plot in the classic sense, and even less so a message, or a position. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a story, though. Totalement Inconnu, her latest novel, throws us into the psyche of a writer and part-time receptionist who has been hearing, for some time now, a voice dictating her actions. Read more.
Totalement inconnu, Gaëlle Obiégly, éd. Christian Bourgois.
Winner of this year’s Prix Fémina.
As I read Claude Hunzinger’s autobiographical novel, Un chien à ma table, I felt a strange sensation, the kind one rarely experiences when reading a text: that of being at home, even returning home. Read more.
Un chien à ma table, Claudie Hunzinger, éd. Grasset.
Les Corps flottants [Floating Bodies] ar those fleeting shapes, those shadows formed on the retina that follow its movements. According to Jane Sautière, these specters, as they are called, are signs of aging, similar to the memories of the beings who haunted her existence and slowly faded away. Read more.
Corps flottants, Jane Sautière, éd. Verticales.
I have to confess… I have a bias against child narrators. It’s not that I don’t like kids, or children’s books for that matter. It’s more that in my experience, they tend to sound artificial and lack credibility. But this fall, La dissociation, Nadia Yala Kisukidi’s debut novel changed my perspective entirely. Read more.
La dissociation, Nadia Yala Kisukidi, éd. du Seuil, coll. Cadre Rouge.
