The author of The Art of Losingwinner of numerous awards, once again explores questions of identity in this new literary release.
This time she travels to New Caledonia, and her story echoes the political and social crisis that has been shaking the archipelago for several months. After a romantic breakup, her character Tass leaves France, where she spent half the year, to return home to Noumea for good. While she returns to her old habits and finds her teaching job, Tass becomes fixated on two students in her class, indigenous twins who disappear overnight. It quickly becomes apparent that they are linked to a local independence group, while a new referendum divides the population on the question of independence.
In this tense political climate, marked by the ambient animosity towards France and the departure of those we call the metropolitans, the identity debates as well as the reflections on the colonial heritage join the questions of Tass, who questions herself on her origins and what she calls her “ancestral western”.
This is a subject that should have challenged us, but the detached tone that the author adopts struggles to arouse the slightest emotion. Result: we lose interest in the story as we progress in reading. Of the flame that had made us vibrate while reading her essay A whole half of the worldno trace was found, but rather a coldness reminiscent of his novel Like an empire within an empire. At least, Alice Zeniter will have succeeded in educating us about the history of the archipelago and making us want to discover its beautiful landscapes.
Hitting the epic
Flammarion
352 pages