Olivier Assoulyn Ghazi Rabihavi, Yves Ravey, Joachim Schnerf, Seo Mi-ae… Brief reviews of the literary season

Eleven novels, a collection of short stories, two essays on history, one on sociology… Here are brief reviews of fifteen notable works from the new literary season in this thirty-fifth week of the year.

Novel. “The Choice”, by Viola Ardone

Oliva Denaro – anagram of Viola Ardone – is not very marriage-friendly. Nor to the rules which, in her Sicilian town, assign women the role of faithful wives and stay-at-home mothers. As a teenager, she was taught that the singular feminine did not exist, because“A wife without a husband is like half a scissors: she is useless”. And how could she bring herself to marry the young courtier who, tired of her indifference, abused her, to claim rights over her person and ask for a reparative marriage?

We are in 1960, in an Italy where the law establishes that the offense of rape is extinguished by simple marriage. Refusing to submit to her executioner, Oliva “no longer wants to obey anyone”. And understand that“instead of multiplication tables, we should have [lui] learn to say no, because to say yes, girls learn it from birth ». With lively and sensitive prose, Viola Ardone plunges us into the dark history of codes of honour, recounting, the better to make fun of them, the sayings that say it all about communities dominated by men. F. C.-S.

“Le Choix” (Oliva Denaro), by Viola Ardone, translated from Italian by Laura Brignon, Albin Michel, 400 p., €22.90, digital €15.

Sociology. “ Who is the meat? by Olivier Assouly

A reversal is underway, which the public debate testifies to the point of caricature, around the legitimacy of feeding on certain animal species. The pressure exerted by a new sensitivity to the living, the progress of knowledge and – a claiming product of the first two – the development of veganism make it increasingly difficult to transform animals into human beings. “impersonal and anonymous”the only way, writes Olivier Assouly, to“to exclude any risk of amalgamation with the human body”. A world without meat consumption therefore seems possible, although it is slow in coming. The philosopher, who takes this resistance as his object, succeeds in producing a balanced reflection on what it conceals. When the animal becomes your neighbour, cannibalism rears its head. And with it certain deep, sacrificial structures of our societies, which from then on we can see in full light. Fl.Go

“Who is the meat? », Olivier Assouly, Pocket, « Agora », unpublished, 192 p., 8.75 €.

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