The Witch
A Novel
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- € 9,99
Beschrijving uitgever
SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE
In a small, sleepy town, a mediocre witch, in a mediocre marriage, tries to pass on her gifts to her twin daughters, who, it becomes immediately apparent, have skills far beyond her own.
"The Witch is classic NDiaye. Taut, spellbinding and strange, it unfolds with the disturbed logic of a fever dream." —The New York Times
"The Witch is Marie NDiaye at her most dazzling. In this simple, startlingly powerful novel, NDiaye lays out her central themes: familial secrets, power, shame, and liberation. NDiaye is one of the greats—her novels are mesmerizing, wholly singular, completely unforgettable." —Katie Kitamura, author of Audition
Lucie comes from a long line of witches, with powers passed down from mother to daughter. Many of them have hidden or repressed their gifts to appease disgusted or fearful men. But against the wishes of her controlling husband, Lucie initiates her twins into their family’s peculiar womanhood when they reach the age of twelve. In a few short months, Maud and Lise are crying rich crimson tears, their powers quickly becoming more potent than their mother’s, opening them to liberation and euphoria beyond what Lucie and her foremothers ever considered.
Equal parts dreamlike and disquieting, The Witch tells a tale as old as time, with a dark twist: Without looking back, children fly the nest, laying bare the tenuous threads of family that have long threatened to snap. With simmering tension and increasing panic, NDiaye’s latest novel in English captures the terror and precarity of motherhood and marriage, and the uncertainty of slowly realizing that your progeny are more dangerous—to the world and to your heart—and freer than you ever could have dreamed.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Witchcraft and family strife animate this uneven 1996 novel by NDiaye, winner of the Prix Goncourt for Three Strong Women. In suburban France, twins Maud and Lise have turned 12, and the time has come for their mother, narrator Lucie, to pass along her inherited sorcery powers. Lucie's gift allows her to see faint glimpses of the past, present, or future, but her daughters' powers turn out to be much stronger, like Lucie's mother before her. She's overcome by the pair's "bored disdain," now that they always know what's going to happen, and worried they'll only use their magic for "practical purposes." Meanwhile, tension with her frustrated and unkind husband comes to a tipping point when he skips out and steals their savings. NDiaye has a knack for surrealism, as when she imbues quotidian domestic scenes with supernatural imagery such as the "vaporous carpet of tiny dark feathers" left by the twins in their wake. Unfortunately, Lucie's conflicts remain underdeveloped, and the work feels more like a collection of vignettes than a satisfying narrative. Diehard fans ought to take a look, but this doesn't have the power of NDiaye's best work.
