Monica Sabolo
“The Bastion of Tears”, by Abdellah Taïa (Julliard, 213 p.)
Youssef, a Moroccan professor exiled in France for twenty-five years, returns to his native village to liquidate the family inheritance. This return to his origins brings back the past, in particular the memory of his young years with his six sisters, excessive and sublime figures, whose presence ignites this splendid novel which won the December Prize.
Marion Ruggieri
“Houris”, by Kamel Daoud (Gallimard, 416 p.)
Pregnant, Aube decides to return to her native village, where her throat was slit at the age of 5, on December 31, 1999. Through her narrator who has lost the ability to speak since that bloody night, Kamel Daoud gives substance to the war Algerian civil war in the 1990s which left 200,000 dead. It's hard, bright. A masterful Goncourt.
Catherine Robin
“The Crime Criers. La Belle époque du fait divers”, by Sylvain Venayre and Hugues Micol (La Découverte/Delcourt, 144 p.)
A fascinating historian scriptwriter, specialist of the 19th century, who does not
France
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