Ladivine: A novel by Marie NDiaye (Author)
From the acclaimed author of Three Strong Women: a harrowing and subtly crafted novel of a woman captive to a secret shame.
The first Tuesday of every month, Clarisse Rivière leaves her husband and young daughter to take the train to Bordeaux and visit her mother, Ladivine. Clarisse has concealed nearly every aspect of her adult life from this woman whom she dreads and despises but also pities, and who knows her as Malinka. But after twenty-five years, the idyllic life she has built from scratch cannot survive the walls she's put up to protect it. Her anguish leaves her cold and guarded, her loved ones forever trapped outside, looking in, and then everything comes crashing down. When she is brutally murdered, her daughter will try to work out what happened, and through a mystical logic NDiaye makes utterly persuasive, Clarisse's spirit will be perceived to have lodged itself in a brown dog that watches over her daughter and mother.
Translated from the French by Jordan Stump.
The first Tuesday of every month, Clarisse Rivière leaves her husband and young daughter to take the train to Bordeaux and visit her mother, Ladivine. Clarisse has concealed nearly every aspect of her adult life from this woman whom she dreads and despises but also pities, and who knows her as Malinka. But after twenty-five years, the idyllic life she has built from scratch cannot survive the walls she's put up to protect it. Her anguish leaves her cold and guarded, her loved ones forever trapped outside, looking in, and then everything comes crashing down. When she is brutally murdered, her daughter will try to work out what happened, and through a mystical logic NDiaye makes utterly persuasive, Clarisse's spirit will be perceived to have lodged itself in a brown dog that watches over her daughter and mother.
Translated from the French by Jordan Stump.
Review
Ladivine is a wonder indeed...like a saga that you never want to end because each page reveals new riches. -- Claire Devarrieux Liberation A sumptuously written novel by a writer at the height of her powers. Telerama With its unique phrasing, slow, multi-layered, and each sentence an absolute necessity, Ladivine is a new delight. -- Didier Jacob BiblioObs Ladivine is a real jewel... impeccable craftsmanship, refined phrasing that swirls with description, and a bewitching story. All of the author's talents are on display here. -- Marianne Payot Express
About the Author
MARIE NDIAYE was born in Pithiviers, France, in 1967; spent her childhood with her French mother (her father was Senegalese); and studied linguistics at the Sorbonne. She was only eighteen when her first work was published. In 2001 she was awarded the prestigious Prix Femina for her novel Rosie Carpe; in 2009, the Prix Goncourt for Three Strong Women; and in 2015, the Gold Medal in the Arts from the Kennedy Center International Committee on the Arts.
Funmi Tofowomo Okelola
-In the absence of greatness, mediocrity thrives.
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