A Nail, A Rose
Stories of longing, desire, and everyday life
Madeleine Bourdouxhe author Faith Evans translator
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Pushkin Press
Published:6th Jun '19
Should be back in stock very soon
This collection of stories reveals the emotional turmoil of women navigating desire and dissatisfaction, as seen in A Nail, A Rose.
In A Nail, A Rose, Madeleine Bourdouxhe crafts a poignant exploration of longing and dissatisfaction through a series of interconnected stories. Each narrative delves into the complexities of daily life, where the ordinary is disrupted by unexpected emotional currents. For instance, a heartbroken woman finds herself both attacked and pursued by a mysterious stranger, illustrating the chaotic interplay between vulnerability and desire. Similarly, a maid's experience of wearing her mistress's luxurious coat reveals her yearning for intimacy, not just with her lover but with the life she observes from a distance.
The backdrop of A Nail, A Rose is the turbulent aftermath of the Nazi occupation of Europe, a period that deeply influences the characters' lives and choices. Bourdouxhe's writing resonates with the existential and surrealist movements of her time, capturing the essence of women's experiences through a lens of piercing insight. One striking story depicts a woman giving birth amidst the chaos of foreign troops invading her city, forcing her to flee with her newborn, symbolizing the resilience and fragility of life.
Translated with remarkable clarity by Faith Evans, these stories illuminate the conflicted hearts of housewives, mothers, and maids. Bourdouxhe's unforgettable tales are infused with desire and melancholy, memory and fantasy, revealing the emotional furnace that simmers beneath the surface of everyday existence.
"Often dream-like but centred on the daily life of women… magnificent." - Guardian
"Her lonely, fantasising women call up Rhys and Mansfield." – Hermione Lee, Observer
"The stories here reveal a poetic imagination which combines the startling imagery of the surrealists with intensely female preoccupations . . . a singular, resonant voice." – Literary Review
"These are the stories of a very gifted, very honest writer, who moves quite naturally between fidelity to fact and fidelity to the furnace beneath it, of memory and fantasy and bereavement." – TLS
"Madeleine Bourdouxe is one of the more remarkable literary discoveries of the last few years." - Jonathan Coe
"An unforgettable, thrilling achievement... What [Marie] does, no less, is stake a claim to Bourdouxhe's rightful position alongside Proust and Virginia Woolf as an explorer of interior life." - Sunday Times
"A stunning collection... [Bourdouxhe] has the observational expertise and tightness in structure of Katherine Mansfield, a touch of Angela Carter’s wildness, and the realism in her characterisation and dialogue reminded me of Daphne Du Maurier’s later work... a moving, powerful and transformative reading experience." — The Heroine Collective
"Exquisite, elegant, and nonsentimental... Bourdouxhe conveys the sharp, almost physical intensity of thought." - Irish Times on Marie
"the laureate of yearning… [her] greatness lies in her ability to conjure the most exquisite and heart-rending moments from the most quotidian circumstances. Everyone should read her." — Graeme Macrae Burnet, author of His Bloody Project
"Powerful stories… what a treat for modern readers to have her work revived." — A Life in Books blog
"The surrealist soul of these stories is played with in both tragedy and comedy, and is frightfully good at bringing colour and electricity to the flat and the ordinary." — Books and Bao blog
"There are not many writers you can think of who have understood the patriarchal situation with such clarity and disregarded it all the same with the exact proportionate amount of dignity, nihilistic abandon and fatalism." — Flowerville blog
"Bourdouxhe’s women have almost untold depths of feeling and trauma…But they are never bowed: they love, they mourn, they desire, they dream, they take risks. Above all, they never lose their sense of self." — Translating Women blog
"I loved her writing, with its bare starkness." — Bookword blog
"remarkable collection. Vivid… exquisite… stylish." — Book Jotter blog
"A compact, yet challenging, piece of work… explores a variety of themes… continues to invoke debate and deliberation." — Swirl and Thread blog
ISBN: 9781782275138
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
224 pages