Description
Book SynopsisMarie, a nurse on the island of Mayotte, adopts an abandoned baby and names him Moïse, raising him as a French boy. As he grows up, Moïse struggles with his status as an outsider and to understand why he was abandoned as a baby. When Marie dies, he is left alone, plunged into uncertainty and turmoil, ending up in the largest and most infamous slum on Mayotte, nicknamed Gaza.
Narrated by five different characters, Tropic of Violence is an exploration of lost youth on the French island of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean. Shining a powerful light on problems of violence, immigration, identity, deprivation and isolation on this island that became a French département in 2011, it is a remarkable, unsettling new novel that draws on the author''s own observations from her time on Mayotte.
Translated from the French by Geoffrey Strachan
Trade ReviewA
masterpiece -- François Busnel * La Grande Librairie *
This hard, harsh story will wring out your heart with its
otherworldly poetry -- Xavier Houssin * Elle *
In the
magnificent Tropic of Violence, Nathacha Appanah gives us a terrifying portrait of Mayotte -- Julien Bisson * Lire *
A
brief, beautiful, brutal portrait of this tiny island in the Indian Ocean -- Gladys Marivat * Le Monde *
The strength and the elegance of this novel
will take your breath away -- Marianne Payot * L'Express *
The hell of Mayotte finds its redemption in the novel's
restrained,
imaginative use of language -- Claire Devarrieux * Libération *
Brilliantly vivid * Guardian *
Beautiful and brutal * New Yorker *
Searing, lyrical, and ultimately devastating,
Tropic of Violence might be
Appanah's finest yet * Kirkus Reviews *
