Jennifer Solheim on the art of telling in Nathacha Appanah’s Tropic of Violence, examining how the author’s “use of perspective and authority might serve as an example of how writers can develop characters whose social identities are different from their own, in ways that are palpable, believable, and move beyond empathy.”
“In Slimani’s novel, the burden placed upon women to care for children balances alongside the treatment and perceptions of immigrant women. And rendering these issues to subtext, rather than treating them head-on and politically, the narrative forces the reader to become complicit in the shoddy treatment of others for the sake of convenience and creature comforts.”
Jennifer Solheim on Kamel Daoud’s The Meursault Investigation: “Through Harun, Daoud explores both the ethics of Camus creating a nameless Arab character to kill on the beach as part of a philosophical exploration, and the horror of a pied noir being canonized for killing an Arab.”
