Tag: literature in translation

#BlogTour #BookReview Real Life by Adeline Dieudonné @WorldEdBooks

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Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for Real Life by Adeline Dieudonné, translated from the French by Roland Glasser. Real Life was published in paperback on 13th February 2020. Thanks to Anne at Random Things Tours for inviting me to participate and to World Editions for my proof copy. You can find out what I thought about Real Life below.

Dieudonné_RealLifeAbout the Book

At home there are four rooms: one for her, one for her brother, one for her parents … and one for the carcasses. The father is a big game hunter, a powerful predator; the mother is submissive to her violent husband’s demands. The young narrator spends the days with her brother, Sam, playing in the shells of cars dumped for scrap and listening out for the chimes of the ice-cream truck, until a brutal accident shatters their world.

The uncompromising pen of Adeline Dieudonné wields flashes of brilliance as she brings her characters to life in a world that is both dark and sensual. This breathtaking debut is a sharp and funny coming-of-age tale in which reality and illusion collide.

Format: Paperback (320 pages)          Publisher: World Editions
Publication date: 13 February 2020 Genre: Literary fiction, literature in translation

Find Real Life on Goodreads

Purchase links*
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*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

My Review

At one point in the book, the unnamed narrator attempts to reassure her younger brother, Sam, scared by tales of what lurks in the woods beyond their house, by saying “Stories exist to contain everything that frightens us. That way we can be sure those things won’t happen in real life.”

If only that were so. In fact, the real life she and Sam experience is the stuff of nightmares. A violent, tyrannical father who gets his kicks from killing animals and displaying them as trophies in his carcass room (described as ‘a Noah’s Ark of the dead’). A mother who has been so cowed into passivity by their father’s physical and psychological abuse that her daughter dismissively compares her to an amoeba. The scenes of the family’s tense meal times powerfully communicate the sense that violence can erupt at any moment. “Life was a big soup in a mixer where you had to try and avoid being shredded by the blades.”

When the children witness a dreadful freak accident, the trauma causes our narrator to believe that an evil presence has taken up residence within her brother. Feeling a responsibility to save him, she comes up with a plan that involves channelling her obvious intelligence and hunger for learning into the study of physics.

Our narrator also becomes convinced her life is not the one she was intended to lead, that she is in the “flawed offshoot” of a life that should have taken a different direction, and that still can. This conviction, combined with a growing awareness of her own sexuality, leads her into risky behaviour that will have dramatic consequences.

Described as ‘A Lord of the Flies for the #MeToo generation’, I won’t say Real Life makes comfortable reading but it contains some striking imagery and is a powerful, unflinching depiction of a young girl’s attempt to thrive despite her dysfunctional family. I found her determination to save her brother a flash of light in an otherwise dark story.

In three words: Dark, intense, compelling

Try something similar: Welcome to America by Linda Boström Knausgård

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Adeline Dieudonne Author PicAbout the Author

Adeline Dieudonné was born in 1982 and lives in Brussels. A playwright and short-story writer, her first novella, Amarula, was awarded the Grand Prix of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles. Two further booklets were published by Editions Lamiroy in 2017: Seule dans le noir and Bonobo Moussaka.

Real Life was recently awarded the prestigious Prix du Roman FNAC, the Prix Rossel, the Prix Renaudot des Lycéens, and the Prix Filigrane, a French prize for a work of high literary quality with wide appeal. Dieudonné also performs as a stand-up comedian.

About the Translator

Roland Glasser is an award-winning translator of French literature, based in London.

Real Life BT Poster

#BookReview Welcome To America by Linda Boström Knausgård @WorldEdBooks

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20190824_143008About the Book

Ellen is 11. She stopped talking when her father died. She thinks she may have killed her mentally ill father – she prayed hard enough for it. Her brother has barricaded himself in his room. Their mother, a successful actress, carries on as normal. “We’re a family of light!” she insists. But darkness seeps in everywhere and in their separate worlds each of them longs for togetherness.

Welcome to America is a dark and scintillating portrait of a sensitive, strong-willed child and a young mind in the throes of trauma, a family on the brink of implosion, and the love that threatens to tear them apart.

Format: Paperback (128 pp.)                Publisher: World Editions
Publication date: 3rd October 2019  Genre: Literary Fiction, Translated Fiction

Purchase Links*
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*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find Welcome to America on Goodreads

My Review

In Welcome to America (translated from the Swedish by Martin Aitken) the author takes the reader inside the mind of a traumatised, troubled individual.  What’s surprising is that the articulate, introspective, reflective character we encounter is an eleven year-old girl.  Ellen’s mature use of language and extensive vocabulary seem way beyond her years.

Ellen feels guilt about the death of her father, a guilt born out of having wished for it,  albeit because of the strain his unstable mental state placed on her family.  ‘Death stood between us now, like a river running by, and I could wade through that river,  across to the other shore, and know I was safe.’   The manifestations of her father’s mental condition are not the only things that have caused fear in Ellen’s life.  There’s her brother’s inexplicable cruelty to her and his strange ways that include erecting barriers to prevent anyone entering his room.  And there’s her belief that she is responsible, through wishing for them, for events that are clearly accidental or not her fault.

Ellen’s is a odd, lonely and isolated existence but one she seems to find strangely comforting. ‘Night was the time I liked best… Night was a friend.  Silence wasn’t odd at night, and loneliness unfeigned.’  Her need to exercise control over some/any aspect of her life appears to be at the root of her decision to stop talking.  ‘I wanted to sit in enduring silence, to feel it grow strong and take everything into its possession.’ At times, she has to discipline herself not to speak, to restrain that natural impulse.

Although Ellen’s mother constantly insists, “We’re a family of light!”, for much of the book it feels very much the opposite.  However, gradually there are glimpses of light starting with something as simple as a sentence written in a notebook, a family meal, a shared pleasure and the thought, ‘It occurred to me that I might be happy’.   I can’t imagine anyone finishing this book and not wishing this to be the case for Ellen.

Yes, Welcome to America is dark and at times deeply troubling but it is also beautifully written and leaves the reader with the feeling there is always at least the possibility of happiness however fleeting.

I received an advance review copy courtesy of World Editions

Linda Bostrom KnausgardAbout the Author

LINDA BOSTRÖM KNAUSGÅRD is a Swedish author and poet, as well as a producer of documentaries for national radio. Her first novel, The Helios Disaster, was awarded the Mare Kandre Prize and shortlisted for the Swedish Radio Novel Award 2014.

Welcome to America, her second novel, was nominated for the prestigious Swedish August Prize and the Svenska Dagbladet Literary Prize. (Photo credit: Goodreads author page)

Connect with Linda
Website | Goodreads

About the Translator

MARTIN AITKEN is a full-time translator of Scandinavian literature.  His recent translation of Hanne Ørstavik’s Love was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award.

Website