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WOMEN WRITINGat school. She holds a PhD in modern literature, with a thesis entitled, “Water in the poetry of Paul Claudel andin Chinese and Japanese poets”. She has already published two anthologies of poetry: PARFUMS ANDDÉSERTS. She currently teaches communication in a University Institute of Technology. SOFT SHADOWS isher first novel.WOMEN WRITINGOlmi, Véronique: LA NUIT EN VÉRITÉ(Albin Michel, August 2013, 320 pages)Ø Enzo, caught between childish naivety and necessary maturity, is a well-rounded, realistic character thatreaders can relate to and admire.Ø Véronique Olmi manages to capture the complexity of Enzo’s world through a combination of realisticand more poetic writing styles.Ø One of Véronique Olmi’s more surprising novels, along the lines of BORD DE MER.Enzo is not your typical pre-teen boy. Overweight, solitary and absent-minded, he loves to lose himselfin books and to reinvent the world. He and his mother, a housekeeper, live in her employers’ huge Parisianapartment, and he attends the excellent local school. But the situation is far from ideal, and Enzo will need agreat deal of emotional maturity to cope with the problems that are about to befall him.Eleven-year-old Enzo Popov has just entered middle school. His mother, Loubia, 29, is a housekeeper;his father’s whereabouts are unknown. He and his mom live in a maid’s room in her employers’ apartment. Whatseemed to be a lucky break is actually more of a nightmare. Loubia lives in fear of her employers, and with noprivacy, the mother-son relation has to be endlessly reinvented. Enzo handles the situation quite diplomatically.Attentive to his mother’s needs, he turns a china cupboard into a small bedroom for himself, affording Loubiathe privacy she craves on Saturday nights. In the cupboard, Enzo encounters the ghost of a soldier. Thisintriguing visit only adds to Enzo’s endless questions about his origins.To make matters worse, Enzo doesn’t have any friends at school. The bullying he suffers eventuallyescalates into such a brutal attack that he leaves the school for good. Feverish from the blows and thehumiliation, he has a vision in which he meets his grandfather, André, a Russian who came to France to fight theGermans during World War I. Her son’s suffering convinces Loubia to quit her job. Mother and son go to build anew life by the sea – one that will truly be theirs. But first, Enzo needs to find his roots. So he goes to thecountryside to see the fort where André was stationed and where his mother grew up. In an epiphany moment, hefinally understands where he comes from.Véronique Olmi has written a moving narrative about the search for one’s roots, a mother-sonrelationship in an awkward situation, and their clumsy attempts to find a place in a world they don’t feel athome.After having written several plays, Véronique Olmi’s first novel, BORD DE MER (“Seaside”),published by Editions Actes Sud, won the Prix Alain Fournier. She went on to write numerous novels forÉditions Grasset and Actes Sud. LA NUIT EN VÉRITÉ is her second novel for Éditions Albin Michel, afterNOUS ÉTIONS FAIT POUR ÊTRE HEUREUX. Her plays and novels have been translated into manylanguages.“Très tenu et fort bien charpenté, LA NUIT EN VERITE est comme toujours une œuvre de tension, deliberté, et de grande émotion.” Lire“Un roman d’une tendresse bouleversante, qui proclame l’affirmation radieuse que l’on peut toujoursrésister à la violence du monde.” Le Matin Dimanche“LA NUIT EN VERITE est un magnifique roman d’apprentissage centré sur le personnage d’EnzoPopov, garçon rondouillard au seuil de l’adolescence et aux marges de la société.” Page“Véronique Olmi nous livre un roman d’apprentissage, de construction, de résilience tout ensensibilité.” RFI34Contact: Mrs Anastasia Lester ; Email:anastassia.lester@gmail.com