Je ne répondrai plus jamais de rien

Can we be exiled from love as if from a country? A woman addresses her recently deceased mother who, in the last months of her life, kept saying I'm answerable to nothing now, as if this refrain asserted her freedom. Why these obstinate words? Mother and daughter were both abandoned by a man who never succeeded in being a husband or father, and never stopped seeing his mistress. How to counter such rivalry? How not to give in to melancholy and refuse to accept defeat? The daughter - who has a kind, reliable partner by her side - tries to understand by exploring her most secret feelings. In this quartet of characters, Linda Lê gives us a concentrate of the human condition. Linda Lê is a French writer of Vietnamese origins. She is the author of a significant literary oeuvre, including Lame de fond (shortlisted for the 2012 Goncourt prize), À l'enfant que je n'aurai pas (winner of the 2011 Renaudot du poche prize) and Cronos (winner of the 2010 Wepler prize).