Emma, declared mad, misunderstood by all, takes refuge in her past, her language. Only Flore, her interpreter, will be able to untie the skein of memories that ties Emma's throat. Together they untangle the thread of memory, of these lives that have been fatally linked since Kilima, the Bantu ancestor, was torn from her native land. The intensity of the relationships woven between the generations is growing crescendo towards a denouement accepted as obvious.
Marie-Célie Agnant creates pauses in the most tense atmospheres, she maintains her story with all the registers, from emotion to irony. The restraint in the writing protects us from the violence of these scorned maternal loves; the distance maintained between the reader and the tragedy dispenses with judgment: guilt can finally give way to innocence.
