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...
Born in 1979, Szczepan Twardoch is one of the most read and appreciated Polish novelists of the young generation. Beyond many stylistic and thematic qualities, his fiction deserves our attention because of the need to combat the widespread stereotype of Poland as a mono-religious country populated with people from the same ethnical and cultural background. Twardoch, who in numerous interviews identifies himself as a Silesian[1] , insists on the diversity of Poles, as opposed to being a homoge...
