One day, a hungry red-haired girl comes out of the forest like a wild animal and will upset the existence of the inhabitants of the Back Country, a region cut off from the world where the climate is harsh and the peasants enslaved to a caste of local lords, who consider their subjects as a herd of animals. In this harsh and destitute country straight out of a Middle Ages which does not speak its name, washed out by wars and taxes, the resigned docility of the villagers preserves the order of things: “We are cowards, but we we are alive. » But young Madelaine, like a fire that warms them, does not know their limits. Sandrine Collette composes with Madelaine before dawnits 11e title, a rural drama with deep and sensory ramifications, which taps into animality and the instinct for survival. Somewhere between the registers of Philippe Claudel and Marie-Hélène Lafon, the author of We were wolves (2022) also provides readers with some surprises.
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