A man whose name is unknown lives recluse in his apartment in Paris. He hasn’t set foot outside for years, since the only woman he loved left him. When he learns of her death, he is unable to go to her funeral; the next day he goes out and throws away the keys to his home.
Posted at 5:00 p.m.
The realization that he is now homeless frees him from all his anxieties and he then signs a contract with the street: he promises to stay there if it allows him to empty himself of his memories.
The ease and freedom of the first days are quickly extinguished; despite everything, a new daily life takes hold as he wanders the city. Each day becomes synonymous with a street and a weekly encounter with women who work or live there, invisible to society, but for whom he feels a silent sympathy. Then one of them suddenly awakens what was buried. The rue du Liban that he avoided during his walks suddenly comes back to his memory, exhaling the scents of the past: his mother’s cream, jasmine and gunpowder. Against all odds, her still gaping wounds bring us back to the conflict that broke thousands of souls in the author’s native country (winner of the France-Lebanon Prize in 2020 for her first novel, Weeds). This is how an unsuspected story, both cruel and heartbreaking, unfolds in a singular way, from one metaphor to another, and reveals a writing of great beauty that brings life back to all those forgotten dragging their wounds in the anonymity of big cities.
Midnight blue
Dima Abdullah
Sabine Wespieser Editor
240 pages