She was 22 years old when she won her first literary victory — the jury of the French national radio competition declared the text of the Sorbonne student «the most beautiful love letter.» Seven years later, after giving birth to her second child, Anna Gavalda published her first bestseller, I Wish Someone Was Waiting for Me Somewhere (1999).
She was 22 years old when she won her first literary victory — the jury of the French national radio competition declared the text of the Sorbonne student «the most beautiful love letter.» Seven years later, after giving birth to her second child, Anna Gavalda published her first bestseller, I Wish Someone Was Waiting for Me Somewhere (1999). But her theme and style really showed up later — in novels where the characters are looking not for «someone», but for their own — who understand perfectly, close in spirit. This was the case with Chloe and her father-in-law in I Loved Her. I loved him ”(2003), who needed to speak out, cry out their drama. So it was with the heroes of Just Together (2004), who saved each other from loneliness. This is how the village weekend of the brother and beloved sisters in Freedom’s Throat (2010) passed. The heroes of her new story «Billy» Frank and Billy live in the same city and study in the same class. But Frank is too airy and feminine a boy for reality, and in Billy’s family they drink and fight too much … And yet they have enough strength to find each other.
Tender fairy tales with a happy ending from Anna Gavalda are simple and sentimental. But they are addressed to intelligent readers (or rather, female readers), and the elegance and lightness of style allow their author to remain the star of modern French prose for almost twenty years.
Translated from French by Tatiana Pozdneva.
AST, 224 p.