Tropic of Violence

Description

Marie, a nurse on the island of Mayotte, adopts an abandoned baby and names him Moise, raising him as a French boy. As he grows up, Moise struggles with his status as an "outsider" and to understand why he was abandoned as a baby. When Marie dies, he is left alone, plunged into uncertainty and turmoil, ending up in the largest and most infamous slum on Mayotte, nicknamed "Gaza". Narrated by five different characters, Tropic of Violence is an exploration of lost youth on the French island of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean. Shining a powerful light on problems of violence, immigration, identity, deprivation and isolation on this island that became a French departement in 2011, it is a remarkable, unsettling new novel that draws on the author's own observations from her time on Mayotte. Translated from the French by Geoffrey Strachan

Nathacha Appanah, was born in Mauritius in 1973. She was brought up there and worked as a journalist before moving to France in 1998. The Last Brother, her first novel to be translated into English, was awarded the FNAC Fiction Prize in 2007 in its French edition. Her novel Tropic of Violence was winner of the Prix Femina des Lyceens in 2016, as well as seven other French literary awards.

A masterpiece -- Francois Busnel * La Grande Librairie * This hard, harsh story will wring out your heart with its otherworldly poetry -- Xavier Houssin * Elle * In the magnificent Tropic of Violence, Nathacha Appanah gives us a terrifying portrait of Mayotte -- Julien Bisson * Lire * A brief, beautiful, brutal portrait of this tiny island in the Indian Ocean -- Gladys Marivat * Le Monde * The strength and the elegance of this novel will take your breath away -- Marianne Payot * L'Express * The hell of Mayotte finds its redemption in the novel's restrained, imaginative use of language -- Claire Devarrieux * Liberation * Brilliantly vivid * Guardian * Beautiful and brutal * New Yorker * Searing, lyrical, and ultimately devastating, Tropic of Violence might be Appanah's finest yet * Kirkus Reviews *