Washed-Out Memory
The first English translation of a Mauritian family saga
This poignant story from the award-winning Nathacha Appanah begins with a flock of starlings whose murmur, in their secret language, evokes all migrations. For Appanah, it conjures memories of her ancestors, who left a village in India in 1872 for the island of Mauritius. This murmuration marks the beginning of a great journey through memory, one that reveals both the collective history of indentured Indian laborers and the intimate story of Appanah’s family. At the heart of the book is a magnificent tribute to her grandfather, whose beauty and courage illuminate these pages. Appanah’s genius lies in her direct yet restrained style, narrating the tales of her ancestors, her parents, and her own childhood as if memory were fading from generation to generation and it is her duty to preserve and protect it.
- ELLEThe most powerful narrative of her oeuvre.
- La CroixThis book is a melting pot of love, stories, grace, and drama—and a portrait of a bygone world
- Le Figaro littéraireThere are a thousand ways to tell history; yet with this narrative, Nathacha Appanah demonstrates that there is nothing more powerful—or indeed, more true—than writing from a human perspective, than 'individualizing.' In doing so, her work as a writer becomes, itself, a historical work.
- Madame FigaroA delicate and understated tribute.
- Le Monde des livresThey spent their lives working on the plantations of Mauritius—sparing with both their words and their feelings. With rare fidelity, with delicacy, and with quiet reserve, Nathacha Appanah tells their story, moving from one memory to the next—her own memories, and those of her parents. Patiently, she traces the thread back to that ancestor who arrived from India in the nineteenth century, offering his labor to take the place of the slaves. And thus, she unveils the true saga of her origins.
Nathacha Appanah is an award-winning journalist-turned-author born in Mauritius and based in France. Her latest novel, La Nuit au cœur, won the Prix Femina, the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens, and the Prix Renaudot des Lycéens. Katherine Gregor is a translator of Italian and French literature, most recently The Memory of the Air by Caroline Lamarche, winner of an English PEN Translates Award.
