The story
Marguerite, daughter and granddaughter of illuminators, lives on the Notre-Dame bridge. Her twin brother is epileptic. Marguerite watches over him, literally keeps him alive. His mother would rather Marguerite be ill than her son. She harasses and overwhelms her daughter. To compensate and ward off this confinement, Marguerite attaches herself to the primordial manifestation of life, which is light and color.
She will earn her place in the family workshop, not without difficulty.
All her life, she walks on a ridge line, a path bounded by the Notre-Dame bridge and the Petit Pont. Every day she crosses the Ile de la Cité, from the illumination workshop to her godfather’s apothecary where she comes to stock up on pigments.
Until the day she meets Daoud. A Moor – the absolute enemy.
The bookseller’s opinion
Anne Delaflotte Mehdevi approaches the period of the Middle Ages in a flamboyant and feminine way in the guise of Marguerite, a renowned and independent illuminator, in the Paris of Pont Notre-Dame. An intimate novel where the richness of colors intertwines with the blossoming of the feelings of a free woman”
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Katia Leduc – Bookstore L’embarcadère (Saint-Nazaire)
The extract
find the 2022 selection of the France Bleu Book Prize – PAGE des Libraires on francebleu.fr