Books by Sylvie Germain

"Sylvie Germain's The Medusa Child beautifully translated from the French by Liz Nash, tells a heartbreaking and violent story about sin and redemption in fantastical language; a myth from la France profonde." Books of the Year in The Independent on Sunday 'Germain's language is redolent with decay, rich with religious torment and ecstasy, and filled with the decadence so loved by this publisher.' Time Out 'The Medusa Child is her most accessible novel, and my favourite. A coherent pattern of metaphor depicts an enchanted country childhood. Lucie explores the marshes around her home and studies the stars. But when she is given a room of her own, an ogre starts to pay her nocturnal visits. Helpless and alone, Lucie decides to fight back by turning herself into a monster. This is a superb and compassionate study of damage and resistance.' Michele Roberts in Mslexia

"An intricate, finely crafted and polished tale, The Weeping Woman brings magic-realism to the dimly lit streets of Prague. Through the squares and alleys a woman walks, the embodiment of human pity, sorrow, death. Everyone she passes is touched by her, and Germain skilfully creates an intense mood and feel in her attempt to produce a spiritual map of Prague." The Observer The figure of this bereft woman develops into a memorable symbol: her sudden appearances - on a bridge,in a square, in a room - haunt the book like history, moved to tears." Robert Winder in The Independent "a haunting classic" Madeleine Kingsley in She Magazine

France's greatest living novelist covers fifty years of rural and Parisian life, from World War II to the present day. She follows the life of an albino child abandoned at birth at a convent and her subsequent life as a servant, a domestic in a brothel, and as an abandoned street-walker.