the taxidermist’s Niece

Khadija Delaval

(Éditions Calmann-Levy, 208 pages, 2022)

***TRANSLATION SAMPLE AVAILABLE HERE***

Like every year, Baya, a teenage girl who lives in Switzerland, her sisters, and a flock of cousins are spending the summer holidays at their grandmother’s in Hammamet, Tunisia.

This will be the most earthshaking of seasons for Baya. Steering through her family’s realm is a real test of temperance—amusing, appealing, and dangerous at the same time. Even among the children, power struggles are waged but met with indifference from the adults. Under the yoke of some older cousins, Baya endures hard times made all the more painful by her mother’s absence, leaving her with no one to confide in.

Discovering her own strength as she stumbles through the summer, Baya toils her way out of this ocean of ordeals, silent orders, and taboos passed on from one generation to the next, only to resurface grown-up in every way. A genuine coming-of-age story, The Taxidermist’s Niece is a powerful and moving account of what lies in store for every girl’s body and identity on the journey toward womanhood.

The novel, disturbing at times, has the merit of shedding light on the workings of a society that appears to be virtuous but is extremely harsh and violent, and won’t leave the reader indifferent.

Khadija Delaval was born in Tunisia in 1973 and resides in Geneva.. The Taxidermist’s Niece is her first work of fiction. This debut novel was the runner-up for the Georges Nicole literary prize.