Author(s): Fatima Daas (translated by Lara Vergnaud)

Novel | Translated fiction | Western Europe | LGBTQI+ | France | 2023 Republic of Consciousness Prize

The youngest daughter of Algerian immigrants, Fatima Daas is raised in a home where love and sexuality are considered taboo and signs of affection avoided. Living in the majority-Muslim Clichy-sous-Bois, she often spends more than three hours a day on public transport to and from the city, where she feels like a tourist observing Parisian manners. She goes from unstable student to maladjusted adult, doing four years of therapy - her longest relationship. But as she gains distance from her family and comes into her own, she grapples more directly with her attraction to women and how it fits with her religion, which she continues to practice. When Nina comes into her life, she doesn't know exactly what she needs but feels that something crucial has been missing.

Review: 'Hypnotising and lyrical' (Guardian) 'Daas has chosen not to play the designated role of 'the chick from the banlieue who made it'. All of this makes her path harder, as does her unwillingness to iron out the conflict she sees between her religion and her sexuality. This has made for a fine first novel' (NLR); 'The writing triumphs by keeping a low profile, without trying to make too much noise, and with a show of compassion for her people' (Virginie Despentes); Fatima Daas has written a first novel with percussive lyricism. With a narrator torn between 'the forbidden' and her desire' (Livres Hebdo);'An absorbing exploration of sexuality and religion in the mainly Muslim Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, Daas's debut is a nuanced tale of finding one's place in the world fired by a desire to belong forged in one's own truth' (New European)

Prizes: Winner of Prix Les Inrockuptibles 2020.

Author Biography: FATIMA DAAS (the author's pseudonym) was born in 1995 and grew up in the Parisian banlieue of Clichy-sous-Bois, where her parents settled after arriving from Algeria. In high school Daas participated in writing workshops led by Tanguy Viel. Well aware of the contradictions, she defines herself as Muslim, feminist and gay