Translated and with an afterword by Faith Evans.
Elisa is Gilles’ wife and her devotion to him is all-consuming. Her daily life is permeated by thoughts of him – thoughts of his return from the factory, thoughts of his footsteps on the path as he arrives home each evening, a sound which still paralyses her with anticipation.
But when Gilles suddenly finds himself powerfully and helplessly attracted to Elisa’s younger sister, Victorine, Elisa’s world is overturned. The joys of home and family are destroyed and her desperation is so profound that it begins to threaten her every sense of reality and the core of her existence.
Set among the dusty lanes and rolling valleys of rural Belgium in the 1930s, La Femme de Gilles is a sensual and shattering novel about infidelity, lust, and the loneliness of losing the one thing that matters most.
‘A marvellous, rediscovered novel about selfless love.’ – Kate Kellaway, Observer
‘One of the more remarkable literary discoveries of the last few years.’ – Jonathan Coe, Guardian
‘A haunting slim novel . . . it has the mesmeric inevitability of classical tragedy.’ – Independent on Sunday
‘La Femme de Gilles is about physical passion, its ecstasies, aberrations and ruthlessness . . . quiet, compassionate and unsparing.’ – Times Literary Supplement
