Silsie is the story of a farewell. It is the story of a passage: between two worlds, two times, two civilizations, the story of a bet: that it is possible for Silsie to end the curse, and to save himself. The principal characters create fables to make sense of the world they inhabit. Redonnet establishes a specular relationship between the narrator and the reader, as they both labour to interpret a disorienting fictional space. Ultimately, the reader’s interpretive attempts mirror those of the narrator: just as the characters attempt to create a meaningful fable around which to order their existence, so too must the reader choose a center around which to construct his or her interpretation.
Source: Brand, Philippe. (2007). Eccentricity in ‘Silsie’ (Marie Redonnet). The French Review.
Photo credit: Jacques Sassier © Gallimard
Marie Redonnet was born in 1948. After studying literature (she wrote her thesis on Jean Genet), she taught art and language. She later worked at the French Embassy in Morocco. Since her first novel in 1986, Marie Redonnet has been creating a fascinating body of works which sway between tales and scalpel, always enshrouded in her powerful imagination and questioning the world in which we live. Apart from the short-story collection, she has written both plays and novels.
Zorana Rackov was born in Kikinda in 1980. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in French language and literature. She translated the short story collection 25 cents et autres histoires à la pièce by Marie-Chantale Gariépy, the novel Rengaine by Julien Maret and the novel Poids lourd by Pascal Rebetez. She has been granted a residential stay by the Ledig-Rowohlt, Château de Lavigny Foundation for her new translation project Hériter du silence by Mathias Howald.