Literature. Our selection of 3 books that salute courage in the face of adversity
The great strange homelands of Guillaume Sire
The great strange homelands
by Guillaume Sire
Ed. Calmann-Lévy, 360 p. ; €21.90.
In Toulouse, between the wars, Joseph lived with his mother Thérèse in a working-class neighborhood. Shaken by the death of his father in 1915 and the distress of his mother, the ultrasensitive boy falls madly in love with a young neighbor, Anima, a pianist, prickly, Jewish, at a time when anti-Semitism is raging. The virtuoso leaves the city without giving any sign of life, and Joseph searches for her, moving heaven and earth. A reunion – very unusual – takes place in the middle of the Second World War.
Vibrant, sensual, burlesque, the sixth novel by Guillaume Sire ( Before the long red flame; The Foothills ) brings to life charismatic characters, starting with Father André, a priest living alongside the destitute and marginalized. The latter saves Joseph and his mother from poverty by finding the latter a place as a cleaning lady in the “whores’ palace” of the Cardinal, another inhabited figure in the novel, a Spanish woman who is not afraid. This ample baroque fresco, with carnal prose, can be savored slowly, with delight.
Muriel Fauriat
Our opinion: PPP