This article about the work of the 2018 Nobel laureate may baffle you. Firstly, I will not comply with the golden rule unofficially imposed on every Pole who dares to write about their national literature in a foreign language: "you will write flatteringly about it or not write about it at all". Furthermore, my text, being not very laudatory, will certainly recall the opinion of the ruling party’s supporters as unable to accept Olga Tokarczuk’s vision, as being too progressive and not suffici...
One of the most emblematic figures of the latest francophone literature, Leïla Slimani gained public recognition when she received the Goncourt Prize in 2016 for Lullaby, a story about a Parisian nanny, who, as a result of mental instability, murders her two charges. It is a flashback novel, which begins with a rather crude description of the crime scene, focusing afterwards on the circumstances prior to the infanticide. This narrative solution intensifies the suspense, as readers follow the ...
Ingredients: a middle-aged protagonist plagued by depression, a few sociological reflections, a handful of anatomical descriptions, several erotic passages, a dash of cynicism and humour. Freely mix these elements in a novel of about three hundred pages. This recipe, applied in Whatever (1994) and perfected through Atomised (1998) won Michel Houellebecq worldwide commercial success and critical acclaim (he is by far the best known French author of our time), then the recognition of the critic...
