Description
In a small French town, a young girl grows up under the hard blue gaze of a mother who will not hold her hand. Her only comfort lies in the warmth of an ill grandmother.
Yet the world around her is full of curiosity. From the obsessive Madame Barbaroux and her endless spring cleaning, to the homeless Monsieur Dezaille and his beloved collection of saucepans, Leduc reveals the eccentricities of provincial life with unflinching candour and striking beauty.
An extraordinary tale of a stifled childhood and an unrelenting love of life from the protégée of Simone de Beauvoir.
*Asphyxia is a new edition of Derek Coltman’s 1970 translation In the Prison of Her Skin.*
Reviews
‘What distinguishes this book, beyond the acuity of the emotion, is the sharpness and closeness of the observation with which the little daughter regards her own town’ The Scotsman
‘The real strength of the book lies in the atmosphere of sheer ordinariness it manages to evoke’ Observer
Praise for Violette Leduc
‘Reading Leduc is like discovering a whole new nervous system’ Deborah Levy
‘The great French feminist writer we need to remember’ The Guardian
‘Violette Leduc is an exceptional writer, and one of the most extraordinary women ever to have written about herself’ TLS
‘Indisputably a brilliant writer’ Evening Standard
‘Like Colette she has a wonderful feeling for all kinds of sensual happiness’ Daily Mail
‘There are no adjectives for Mlle. Leduc’s work, beyond the obvious one, astonishing. To read her is to be astonished by the experience of an enlarged world’ New York Times Book Review
‘A vastly under-read author’ Lauren Elkin, author of Flaneuse
