Men

Winner Prix Médicis, Prix des Prix, 2013


The French title of Men plays on a quote by Marguerite Duras: We have to love men a lot. A lot, a lot. Love them a lot in order to love them. Otherwise it's impossible, we couldn't bear them.'


With her characteristic intensity, edginess and humour, Marie Darrieussecq explores female desire, what it means to be a woman. Solange was a provincial teenager in All the Way; now in her thirties, she’s not a great mother, is a mediocre actress, but in Hollywood she falls for a charismatic actor, Kouhouesso, who wants to direct a movie of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness—in Africa. He’s black; she’s white—what’s the difference when it comes to love, she wonders?


Solange follows her man to Africa, determined to play a main role in both his film and his affections. But nothing goes to plan in this brilliantly droll examination of romance, movie-making and clichés about race relations. After all, there’s no guarantee you’ll be loved by the one you love.


Personal and political, passionate and engaged, Men is a novel that will make you see things differently.


Marie Darrieussecq was born in 1969 in Bayonne, France. Her debut novel, Pig Tales was published in thirty-four countries. Five other novels have also been translated into English including A Brief Stay with the Living, Tom is Dead and All the Way. Marie Darrieussecq lives in Paris.


‘There are few writers who may have changed my perception of the world, but Darrieussecq is one of them.’ The Times


‘The internationally celebrated author who illuminates those parts of life other writers cannot or do not want to reach.’ Independent