The House in the Forest

Description

In her cottage in the rain-drenched French countryside, an old woman receives an unexpected visitor: a boy whispering in an unfamiliar language, and bringing sheaves of paper, the letters and jottings of her youngest son. Some time ago her son had done as she had told him, and left to seek his fortune on a Caribbean island. Once there, the promised wealth disastrously eluded him. Soon, not far from the old woman's cottage, the locals see a mysterious stranger, with a boy and a dog, carrying planks into the woods to build a place to live, perhaps a place to die...

Mich le Desbordes grew up in Orl ans, France. She studied at the Sorbonne and eventually specialised as a book archivist, working in Parisian universities and also as a lecturer in Guadeloupe. The Maid's Request is her first novel, which was first published as La Demande in France to enormous critical acclaim. Her second novel, Le Commandement, is now a bestseller in France and will also be published by Faber.