French Novel: The Alchemies, by Sarah Chiche
The author. Born in Boulogne-Billancourt, Sarah Chiche, a psychologist and screenwriter, published her first novel, L'Inachevé, in 2008, Une histoire érotique de la psychoanalyse, in 2018, and novels such as Les Enténébrés and Saturne, with an autobiographical tone.
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We love it. This fiction follows the quest of Camille, a forensic doctor who leaves for Bordeaux following the receipt of an e-mail evoking the disappearance of Goya's skull, which her parents, fans of painting, adored. A journey that sheds light on his family's troubled past and becomes a captivating research into the origin of genius and the powers of art.
Bernard Babkine
Les alchimies, by Sarah Chiche, Éditions du Seuil, 240 p., €19.50. SP
Récit/Essai Proust, Roman Familial, by Laure Murat
The author. Historian and professor at the University of California, Laure Murat received the Femina essay prize in 2011 for The Man Who Thought He Was Napoleon.
We love it. With genius, Laure Murat makes The Search for Lost Time accessible. Because, by telling her story, heiress of a certain world, she transmits to us the gifts that Proust gave her. The first is to allow, "because it renounces all sloppy or ready-made explanations", to look at the world with fresh eyes. The other is that it convinces us that he "invented a help more powerful than the tenderness of an absent mother."
Dove Schneck
Proust, Roman Familial, by Laure Murat, Éditions Robert Laffont, 256 p., €20. SP
Comics/Graphic Novels Evils to Say, by Beatriz Lema
The author. Born in 1985, Beatriz Lima started making comics in 2013. Winner of the Castelao Prize in 2017, she obtained a residency grant in France, of which Des maux à dire is the fruit.
We love it. The power of this book lies in its theme, the author's relationship with her mother, who is sick and convinced that she is being persecuted by a demon, as well as in her form: the medical archives are mixed with drawings and splendid embroidered pages, sewing having been one of the activities that calmed little Bea's mother.
Minh Tran Huyn
Des maux à dire, by Beatriz Lema, Éditions Sarbacane, 184 p., €25. SP
Foreign Novel Those Who Are Killed, by Patrícia Melo
The author. Originally from São Paulo, she began writing for Brazilian television and theatre, then began writing detective novels with a very realistic tone, such as O Matador or Hell.
We love it. Between reality and nightmare, pain and shamanism, anger and hope, this novel follows a young lawyer with a heavy past who, in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, must face violence against women and also against nature. The writing, tinged with a certain magical realism, gives a lot of strength to its endearing heroine, defender of all those who are killed.
Bernard Babkine
Those We Kill, by Patrícia Melo, Éditions Buchet Chastel, 304 p., €22.50. Translated by Élodie Dupau. SP