Born in Calgary, Canada, Nancy Huston, who now lives in Paris, is the author of numerous novels published by Actes Sud and Leméac, including “Instruments of Darkness” (1996; Goncourt Prize for high school students and Book Prize Inter), “L’Empreinte de l’ange” (1998; Grand Prix des Lectrices de Elle), “Fault Lines” (2006; Prix Femina) or even “Stone Lips” (2018), not to mention essays, texts for young people, plays and artists’ books. (Replay)
When the story opens, Shayna, born in the United States, arrives on the African continent for the first time in search of her roots. In Benin, she discovers the ritual of the tree of oblivion which gives its title to the novel, a tradition that women and men honored before boarding, forced and chained, in ships bound for America.
Carried by three voices: Joël the father, Lili-Rose the mother and Shayna their child born by procreation, the new book by Nancy Huston, published in Editions Actes Sudis interested in all the questions of our time: feminism, motherhood, transmission, identity and creation, and thanks to a virtuoso writing takes readers into a whirlwind of emotions.