Sunday book pick: The horrifying effects of the failure of language in ‘A Cage in Search of a Bird’
Originally published in French in 2015, Florence Noiville’s novel was translated into English by Teresa Lavender Fagan in 2016.
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“C is obsessed with me and she is obsessing me, in turn. Her presence has gown like a gas that expands and is smothering me from the inside. I’m suffocating. I’m exhausted.”
Disclosure: I love Florence Noiville’s fiction. Everything that Teresa Lavender Fagan translates is a favourite. I was mesmerised by the duo’s novel, Attachment and I wanted to wait a few years before I picked up Noiville’s other books. When I finally read A Cage in Search of a Bird, I was reminded again why I love their work so much. Sparse and unsparing, Noiville’s novel offers a vivid canvas of two women’s psyches while Fagan’s elegant translation recreates the canvas using an equally beautiful and searing colour palette.
Laura and C
Originally published in French as L’illusion délirante d’être aimé in 2015, the novel was translated into English in 2016. We follow Laura Wilmote, a television journalist in Paris, who does her work with singular focus and prefers to keep to herself at her workplace. She is not exactly known for her sociable nature but is respected by her colleagues for her dedication to her job and for doing it well. Besides her work, the other axis of her life is her Mexican boyfriend Eduardo who adores her and is...
