History, Translation, and Trauma: A Review of Colette Fellous’s “This Tilting World”

"This Tilting World" cover

“Tomorrow, yes, I will leave this house, I’ll abandon the village and the life here, all the faces that I love I will leave.”

“Tilting” is putting it gently. Colette Fellous’s world, detailed through a collage of memory, is actually thoroughly ruptured and shattered amid a trio of losses. Translated from French to English by acclaimed literary translator Sophie Lewis, This Tilting World is Fellous’s first book to appear in English. This author of more than twenty novels in French deviates from conventional form to take us on an impressionistic journey through and beyond the comforts of nostalgia, in a memoir dedicated to her decision to move away from her native Tunisia following the deaths of her father and a dear friend, as well as the 2015 Sousse attacks. 

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Vol.1 Brooklyn’s September 2019 Book Preview

And lo, we’re in September. Nominally, the weather should start to get cooler; by month’s end, we might just see the first glimmerings of the coziness that autumn brings. What are we looking forward to reading this month? A whole array of books, from new works by old favorites to long-awaited debuts. There’s a lot to look forward to here; what follows is a look at some of the books we’re most excited about.

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