“WE’RE ALL WAITING for Marie NDiaye’s breakthrough book in English. You’re waiting, too, whether you know it or not. Despite being an award-winning French writer (she won the Prix Femina in 2001, the Prix Goncourt in 2009, was longlisted for the 2016 Man Booker International Prize, and shortlisted for the 2017 Best Translated Book Award) whose first book was published when she was 17, whose work is both regularly translated into English and generally well reviewed by American critics, NDiaye has yet to gain traction with American readers. At 50, she still hasn’t established the niche audience of, say, Michel Houellebecq, a writer with whom she shares nationality, a tendency toward the cerebral, and a provocateur’s spirit (though the nature of her provocations is more earnest and less performative than Houellebecq’s)…”
Why this failure to connect? Click on the image to find out.
Happy Women In Translation Month!
READER AT LARGE 
Great review. To me this is a book that could be discussed endlessly. Haunting, beautiful, and disturbing. I love the challenge of a writer who expects you to work and read into the perspective of a narrator or protagonist who is difficult, myopic or otherwise affected.
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