Annabella, a Lyon-based student and poet, is estranged for her father for over two years, but his sudden death may request not only an organisational effort on her side - repatriation of the body from France - but also to face her own trauma and conflictual relation to him.
Awarded the Prix Goncourt du premier roman in 2024 for her debut Rapatriement - in my own translation Repatriation - the story is mostly focused on the place of memories and their distortion based on incomplete information and manipulation. Destroying one´s child trust in their parents based on manipulation and lies is breaking the becoming adult´s own trust as well.
It has a cruel direct poetic way - the author is also a poet, like Annabella - to cope with trauma, by describing the details of its installments. There is no reflection or critique on this, just the facts that adds on. The prose is taking non sequential turns with poetic notes reminding on the memory flow.
Rapatriement is a story of daughters and fathers, with a very fine eye for the traumatic impact on mental wellbeing and life decisions. More than any other books, it helped me to better understand its impact only through the dialogues and external observation of the main character, without no further extranous explanation needed.
I felt though that it ends too fast, leaving me with the desire for more - words, story, character development.
Rating: 3.5 stars
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