Véronique Ovaldé has published ten novels, including “And my transparent heart” (France Culture-Télérama prize), “What I know of Vera Candida” (Renaudot prize for high school students in 2009, France Télévisions prize and Grand Prix for ELLE readers), “Bird Lives”, “The Grace of the Brigands” (L’Olivier, 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2013) and, more recently, “Be reckless children” and “No one is afraid of people who smile” (Flammarion, 2016 and 2019).
“She could have given up. She should have given up.
She repeated it to herself a million times over the years that followed. She had a hesitation, perhaps it was better to stay, stretch out in the bedroom, listening to her two other sisters who were gesticulating in their sleep, farting and meowing under their sheets because of their lascivious dreams just pubescent. . Perhaps it was better to abdicate, to enrage, and to revel in one’s rage, since there is a pleasure in abdication, it goes without saying, the tragic pleasure of passivity and spite, the pleasure of draping dignity, we are never allowed to do anything, we just have the right to be silent, we are locked up, while the others out there are having fun and gorging themselves, what have I done in my past lives to deserve this, oh how unhappy I am.
Maybe also that the game was not worth the candle. But the game, isn’t it, rarely worth the candle. The game is desirable only because it is the game.
Véronique Ovaldé, through the story of a family struck by a mysterious tragedy, examines closely the relationships we have with each other and the incessant accommodations that we must make to live our lives. (Presentation of Flammarion editions)