Literary return to school | Ten novels from elsewhere to read this winter

Favorite writers or new pens, this winter season has some exciting literary discoveries in store for us in the department of French novels and translations.

How to loveLisa Moore

We are in Newfoundland, the storm of the century hits the town of Saint-Jean where a young man is beaten up then left for dead in a snowbank. His mother tries to understand what happened to him; his quest will take him into the history of their family through the generations. A reflection on family ties and the sense of community which has seduced English critics to the point of being classified among the best writings of the Newfoundland writer.

January 30

American MotherColum McCann with Diane Foley

Like in his novel Apeirogon, critically acclaimed, the writer of Irish origin wanted to face reality through writing. This time, he accompanied the mother of the first American hostage executed by the Islamic State group (journalist James Foley) to the trial of his executioner, whom she asked to meet. This is how this powerful text was born, which speaks of courage in the face of horror, of faith, of hope, but also of the inconceivable loss of a mother and the possibility of forgiveness.

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Happy lifeDavid Foenkinos

“No era has ever been so marked by the desire to change life. We all want, at some point in our existence, to be someone else,” writes the author of Charlotte in his new novel. During a trip to South Korea, Éric and Amélie lose sight of each other. By chance, he discovers a place in Seoul where patients are invited to experience their own funeral in advance. Transformed by the experience, Éric decides to import the ritual to France.

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Making a womanMarie Darrieussecq

The readers ofYou have to love men a lot And The sea upside down Here we find the characters of Solange and Rose at the dawn of their adult lives. During the 1980s, in the Basque Country, in Bordeaux then in Paris, the two friends will experience destinies that are both linked and very different. A great coming-of-age novel for women, funny and sincere, which navigates between studies and first loves, adventures and motherhood, in the era of Mitterrand, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the start of AIDS.

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Travel without luggageTove Jansson

La Peuplade continues its mission to revive the work of the creator of the Moomins, who died in 2001, by publishing her writings in French – some of which, like this one, had not yet been translated. This fourth novel in the collection tells short moments of humanity through the story of a man who decides to flee his peers by taking to the sea, that of a little moralistic boy who puts his family to the test welcome on a Finnish island, or that of two old men who fight over a bench for weeks. A must-read that will surely be read with a smile on your face.

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Gold and jungleJean-Christophe Rufin

The academician and Prix Goncourt set out to construct a contemporary adventure novel, in the tradition of his great successes. The premise? Fleeing an America in crisis, digital giants are seeking to acquire their own state. Intriguing… and certainly in tune with the times.

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The blood of the innocentSA Cosby

The author of Angera dark novel that blew us away last year, is the literary darling of the moment in the United States (it was even Jimmy Fallon’s guest at Tonight Show few months ago). He brings to life once again, in this third title, a South that still lives in the footsteps of the famous Mason-Dixon line, with the story of a former FBI agent who becomes the first black sheriff of a small county of Virginia. He will have to brave attacks from all sides, even from his own people, as he tries to shed light on the death of a young black man shot dead by the police after shooting a teacher.

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The night female dogRachel Yoder

The original title, Nightbitchis probably more evocative to describe this first novel, which was very noted in the United States and the Anglo-Saxon world – The Guardian has called it a “wild start”, as it will be brought to the screen in 2024 with Amy Adams in the lead role. The narrator, recently become a mother, now feels like “the service dog”, and this feeling will take on unexpected proportions… When night comes, she literally transforms into a dog, a way of approaching with audacity and corrosive humor the question of identity in the face of motherhood.

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The enchanted kingdomRussell Banks

This posthumous novel by the great American writer, who died just a year ago, revisits the life of a man in the 1970s, after his family settled in the swamps of Florida, in the heart of a community of shakers. pious and abstinent. As elsewhere in his work, we will find his questions about memory, faith and love in the face of adversity, in the shadow of postcard landscapes.

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LouisianaJulia Malye

Qualified for “ phenomenon novel” by Livres Hebdo, this fourth title by the 27-year-old novelist (who published her first at 15) will be adapted into a series and was the subject of auctions which resulted in a six-figure sum, we learn from the specialized French site. We will therefore want to discover without fail why we speak of an “unforgettable fresco” to describe the story of these young women sent to the harsh territory of Louisiana, in 1720, to marry colonists.

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