Awards

• Winner of Prix Populiste 2011
• Winner of Prix Valery-Larbaud 2012

Overview

Over the course of a night in police custody, a young woman tries to understand the rage that led her to assault a refugee on the Paris metro. She too is a foreigner, now earning a living as an interpreter for asylum seekers in the outskirts of the city. Translating the stories of men and women who come from her country of birth, into the language of her country of citizenship, Sinha's narrator finds herself caught up in a tangle of lies and truths. Armed with an acerbic sense of humour she exposes prejudices on all sides.

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9781838490461

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Reviews

'Sinha lays bare so much of the nuance and the violence imposed on individuals by the systems in the world meant to keep certain people down - and how immigrants distance themselves or alienate themselves from others who represent their former selves, who seem to pose a threat to what they have made of themselves in their new home and life. She also shows how easily roles are reversed, how easily comfortable walls against the other can crumble and we can find ourselves confronted with the truth - that we are no different from this figure we have turned into a monster or an other, that we can no longer keep up the distancing, the eloignement, the lie that we have constructed, our own world that is untouchable and protected. The violence of becoming strangers to our former selves, even to our true present selves, keeps propelling ourselves forward. And when we feel the identities we've managed to build are under attack, we strike.' - Emma Ramadan, translator of Me & Other Writing by Marguerite Duras; 'Down with the Poor! is a novel as singular in its subject matter as in its language and unbridled energy.... Through the poetic force of her writing, Sinha brings a broken world to burning point.' - Marc Weitzmann, Le Monde; 'A harsh lucidity, often misunderstood by those who, like Sinha, come from far away, looking for a better world. She is similar yet different. And that is the heart of the question - the knot, which she is trying to untangle, of her belonging and her rejection. It is both fascinating and gratifying.' - Marie Etienne, Quinzaine litteraire; 'The accuracy and power of her innovations in vocabulary and metaphor are striking. There is Kafka and Duras in these pages. But also Pascal Quignard whose reflection on the Greeks' belief in the fundamental freedom to go wherever one wants is emphasised at the start of this beautiful novel. Sinha has taken it as the alpha and omega of her writing, enriched with a dazzling and original poetic vitality.' - Tirthankar Chanda, Radio France Internationale; 'A striking book, infinitely harsh on exile, on society and its mirrors, its wounded memory. The author describes the nightmare of aimless wandering and the pain of being reduced to a bureaucratic checklist.' - Christine Ferniot, Telerama; 'Shumona Sinha's singular voice takes us into the nauseating world of bureaucracy, without heroes or pure-hearted victims. She does not condemn anyone, or perhaps she condemns everyone. Welcome to the real world.' - Grazia; 'Indian poet Shumona Sinha has transformed Baudelaire's poetic provocation into a strange and blazing reflection on violence.' - Olivier Maison, Marianne

Author Information

Shumona Sinha was born and grew up in Calcutta, West Bengal. In 1990 she won Bengal's Best Young Poet award. She started learning French at the age of 22 and moved to Paris a few years later. She has since been naturalised French. Her first novel, Fenetre sur l'abime, was published in 2008. Her award-winning second novel, Assommons les pauvres !, was translated into German, Arabic, Italian and Hungarian, and adapted for stage in Germany and Austria. Her third novel, Calcutta (2014), received the Prix du rayonnement de la langue et de la litterature francaises and the Grand Prix du Roman of the Societe des gens de lettres. Her most recent novel, Le testament russe, was published in March 2020 by Editions Gallimard.

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