The writer Natasha Brow publishes in France with Grasset editions ” Assembly », his first novel hailed by all the British critics. An intimate book that hints at the uneasiness of a young black woman’s prejudice in the midst of her apparent social success.
It’s a short book, but its words resonate long. A novel that slaps like a bellows, in which the narrator says things calmly, without forcing her voice. But what she says – and what she doesn’t say – can seem extremely violent, as indeed what the character experiences on a daily basis.
However, she has a good situation, this Englishwoman who occupies a position of responsibility in London finance. She’s brilliant, her salary is as comfortable as the enviable apartment she lives in in a sought-after neighborhood. She has a boyfriend too, from a very wealthy family of British patricians.
And a small detail that isn’t quite a detail: she’s black, people constantly refer to her skin color, the Jamaican culture of her ancestors, they harass her at the office and let it be understood that if she climbed so high, it’s not necessarily for a good reason. So when this woman finds out she has breast cancer, what will she do? Will she still have the courage to fight, again and again, or is it time to let go?
The British novelist Natasha Brown publishes in French, with Grasset editions, his book ” Assembly », in a translation by Jakuta Alikavazovic.
Reportage : Pascal Thibault took an interest in the opening of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin. A modern museum that resembles the ancient castle of the Prussian kings. Since mid-September, the non-European collections have been open to the public, in particular the Benin bronze collections. Works of art that today raise the question of Germany’s colonial past, particularly in Africa.