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by Ananda Devi
With brutal honesty and poetic urgency, Ananda Devi relates the tale of four young Mauritians trapped in their country's endless cycle of fear and violence.
Eve, whose body is her only weapon and source of power; Savita, Eve's best friend, the only one who loves Eve without self-interest, who has plans to leave but will not go alone; Saadiq, gifted would-be poet, inspired by Rimbaud, in love with Eve; Clélio, belligerent rebel, waiting without hope for his brother to send for him from France.
Eve out of Her Ruins is a heartbreaking look at the dark corners of the island nation of Mauritius that tourists never see, and a poignant exploration of the construction of personhood at the margins of society. Awarded the prestigious Prix des cinq continents upon publication as the best book written in French outside of France, Eve Out of her Ruins is a harrowing account of the violent reality of life in her native country by the figurehead of Mauritian literature.
The book featurues an original introduction by Nobel Prize winner J.M.G. Le Clézio, who declares Devi "a truly great writer."
"The beauty of Devi's prose belies the horror of the world she conjures up. This is a visceral portrait of violence rendered honestly and gracefully." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"One of Devi and Zuckerman's greatest triumphs in this book is that each character has their own distinct rhythms, with power and poetry drawn from the cadences of their speech... It could be a manifesto for reading translated fiction, and this stunning short novel is a perfect starting point." ― The Guardian
This information about Eve Out of Her Ruins was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Ananda Devi was born in 1957 in Trois-Boutiques, Mauritius, an island notable for its confluence of diverse ethnic, cultural, and linguistic identities. She studied ethnology and anthropology, and completed a doctoral thesis at SOAS in London. After several years in the Congo, she moved to Switzerland in 1989. She has published eleven novels as well as short stories and poetry over her entire career. Eve Out of Her Ruins, originally published by the prestigious Gallimard publishing house in France in 2006, was an enormous critical and popular success, winning the Prix des cinq continents de la francophonie for the best novel of the year written in French, previously won by such writers as Alain Mabanckou and Mathias Enard. She was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government in 2010. Her first novel in English, Indian Tango, was published by Host Publications in 2011. Devi has participated in numerous literary festivals in the US, Europe, and India, and her works have been translated into numerous languages.
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