Good Denis
$23.00
Additional Info
- ISBN: 9781966192176
- Size: 5.5" x 8"
- Pages: 120
- Publication Date: May 11, 2027
An enigmatic and troubling novel on the fog of childhood and the long shadows cast by good men by critically acclaimed author Marie Ndiaye.
Marie is haunted a man named Denis, whom she doesn’t remember, though everyone else does. It seems that Denis that was there for her after her father abandoned her mother. But it might be that her mother was the one who left her father: for Denis, a man who was powerful and terrifying in his overwhelming goodness. Or maybe her father was Denis, the name given to him by his wife’s family because they couldn’t pronounce his African name. A man who had to bear their coldness until it impossible for him to stay.
Or was Denis a teacher she had? Or somebody else entirely? Or nobody? Ultimately, it doesn’t matter, what matters instead is what it means to be good, and who is it who gets to decide, and who decided so clearly that Marie is not.
Praise
“In Marie NDiaye’s work, we are always in a language—ornate, profound, rich—that captures the fears and desires of her characters.”—Lire
“Marie NDiaye, the greatest contemporary French writer?” —Transfuge
“Unspoken words, secrets, silences, and taboos circulate in a kind of suspended animation in this beautiful text.”—Harper’s Bazaar
“A master of fictional illusions, Marie NDiaye beautifully leads her reader astray in the labyrinth of what was and what could have been.”—Livres Hebdo
Praise for Marie NDiaye
“Marie NDiaye will win the Nobel Prize.”—The New Yorker
“NDiaye is writing a literature both innovative and incredible.”—The New Republic
“NDiaye is a rare novelist.”—NPR
“[NDiaye] is a master at agitating, probing and upending expectations.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Marie NDiaye is so intelligent, so composed, so good, that any description of her work feels like an understatement.”—The New York Review of Books
Marie NDiaye
was born in 1967 in Pithiviers, France. She is the author of around twenty novels, plays, collections of stories, and nonfiction books, which have been translated into numerous languages. She’s received the Prix Femina and the Prix Goncourt, France’s highest literary honor, and her plays are in the repertoire of the Comédie-Française.
Books
Marie NDiaye was born in 1967 in Pithiviers, France. She is the author of around twenty novels, plays, collections of stories, and nonfiction books, which have been translated into numerous languages. She’s received the Prix Femina and the Prix Goncourt, France’s highest literary honor, and her plays are in the repertoire of the Comédie-Française.
Jordan Stump
Jordan Stump has translated many authors into English from French, including Marie Redonnet, Eric Chevillard, and Honoré de Balzac. His translation of Jardin des Plantes by Claude Simon won the 2001 French-American Foundation translation prize, and he was named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Artes et des Lettres in 2006. His English language translations of works by Marie NDiaye have been nominated for the International Booker Prize twice. Ladivine was longlisted for the prize in 2016, and The Witch was shortlisted in 2026.
Books
Jordan Stump has translated many authors into English from French, including Marie Redonnet, Eric Chevillard, and Honoré de Balzac. His translation of Jardin des Plantes by Claude Simon won the 2001 French-American Foundation translation prize, and he was named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Artes et des Lettres in 2006. His English language translations of works by Marie NDiaye have been nominated for the International Booker Prize twice. Ladivine was longlisted for the prize in 2016, and The Witch was shortlisted in 2026.