Natacha Appanah awarded for “La Nuit au coeur”

What was the trigger for this story?

The murder of Chahinez Daoud, in 2021, suddenly brought to light in me a past that I had hidden. I remembered my vivacious cousin Emma, ​​killed by her husband in Mauritius in the year 2000. I heard her bursting laughter and felt guilty: did anyone still remember her? How was his murder described in the newspapers of the time? It was a time when we were not talking about femicide, but about “crimes of passion”. Where we wondered what the wife had done to provoke her husband.

And the whole family was ashamed… And I remembered that I too had run into the street, chased by my companion. How could I have put myself in this situation? I was very angry with the young girl I was. So I thought that perhaps through language, through literature, I could understand and overcome my anger. This story corresponds to a deep necessity linked to time, to long time, to today’s time, to what it is to kill a woman on the public highway.

You met Chahinez Daoud’s mother and sister, and returned to Mauritius to see Emma’s family. Did you want to be as accurate as possible?

No, I did not investigate. It was a quest. Although I have documented a lot about the history of violence against women, I have not tried to verify the statements of Emma’s family or Chahinez Daoud. I had an attitude of listening, I wrote down in my notebook.

In Mauritius, few people remembered Emma: her mother had died, her older brother, her sister and her niece talk about her a little. The murderer had succeeded: erase his body, and erase his memory. Because the goal of these men is to make these women disappear. Concerning Chahinez Doud, I was taken aback: “what? This still happens?!”

Chahinez was courageous, independent. She had done everything necessary in such a case, by filing a complaint, several times. How is it possible that today nothing has followed? Do we still live with this stale idea that what happens within the four walls of the marital home should not leave?

Would you like to denounce these men? Pay tribute to these women?

No, the writer’s place is not there. I search, I dissect. Like a painter, I explore all the colors, to infinity, all the complexities. What interests me is art put to the test of humanity, or humanity put to the test of art. These men are very ordinary, they reflect the banality of evil, as explained by Hanna Arendt.

I had the idea for this novelistic process: I am going to contract time and lock these three men in a fictional room, from the beginning of my story. It gave me incredible energy. Throughout the book they are locked in, they won’t move. But this is not a book against men. There are those who kill.

But there are those who save, like many fathers do. Mine helped me a lot. Chahinez’s raised her as a free woman, to marry, to wear the veil or not, before a violent and manipulative man crushed her free will. Thanks to writing, I can go everywhere, I regain control.