French-born NDiaye has won the Prix Femina, the Prix Goncourt, and has been shortlisted for the Man Booker International prize. The consequences of racial passing are at the core of her moving, ultimately radiant new novel (translated from the French by Jordan Stump). It opens with Clarisse Riviere traveling for her monthly visit to her mother Ladivine in Bordeaux, passing back into her girlhood identity as Malinka. Clarisse visits her mother – “the object of her shame” – in secret, keeping her identity hidden from her family. Her mother’s neighbours have learned not to speak to Ladivine’s white daughter. Over time, living a lie makes Clarisse distant and uncaring. Her husband leaves her, and several years later she is murdered by a lover. Magically, her spirit lingers as a brown dog following her mother and her daughter, “protecting or tracking her, body and soul.”
Marie Ndiaye, Ladivine
