Brunet has followed on from the success of "the Summer of Reckoning" with this magnificent portrait of a woman and a mother, a beautiful and often poetic tale that is unflinching about social and personal violence. Set in Marseilles, this the story of Vanda, a beautiful woman in her thirties, arms covered in tats, dark luxuriant hair in heavy curls, skin so dark that some take her for a North African. Devoted to her six-year-old son Noe, they live in a derelict shed by the beach, a mother surrounding and defending her child like a lioness. She had wanted to be an artist; she is now a cleaner in a psychiatric hospital. But Vanda is quite happy in her shed by the water, alone with her child. "The two of them against the world", as she says. Everything changes when Simon, the father of her son, surfaces in Marseilles. He had left Vanda seven years earlier, not knowing that she was pregnant. When Simon demands custody of his son, Vanda's suppressed rage threatens to explode. The tension becomes unbearable, both parents fully capable of extreme violence.

About the Author
Marion Brunet, born in 1976 in the Vaucluse, is a well-known Young Adult and Literary Fiction author in France. Her YA novels have received over 30 prizes, including the 2017 UNICEF Prize for Youth Literature. "Vanda" is her second novel to be translated into English, after the success of "Summer of Reckoning" in 2020.


Book Information
ISBN 9781913394653
Author Marion Brunet
Format Paperback
Page Count 218
Imprint Bitter Lemon Press
Publisher Bitter Lemon Press