Hannelore CayreRecensioni

This was heaps fun! Don't think I've ever read a french, feminist heist novel. I loved the FU attitude on Patience Portefeux. Middle-aged female misanthropes are massively under-represented in popular culture. Patience is also massively sympathetic, and while this is not critical to everyone's enjoyment of a central character (nor should it be) I totally dug it. Really interesting social commentary around societal attitudes and power structures relating to drugs, crime, and colonization. Also, got to love a short, sharp, snappy book.

En creusant une piscine, des ouvriers découvrent une grotte contenant deux corps et des fresques pariétales représentant des mains dont certains doigts ont été coupés. Un roman noir et pourtant léger à l’époque de la préhistoire, habilement séquencé de manière à introduire des notions scientifiques et historiques sans lourdeurs. Intrigante et percutante, l’intrigue ainsi que son parti pris féministe auraient cependant bénéficié d’un peu plus de transparence entre l’avéré et la fiction.

Fantastic, loved every bit of it. Highly recommend!

I bought this book last year on #LoveYourBookshop Day, courtesy of Readings' newsletter that occasionally features translated fiction. You won't find 'translations' in their category list (and rightly so, because they belong with fiction whatever language they were originally written in) so you have to keep an eye on your inbox. I'm certainly pleased, however, that Readings brought it to my attention and that I didn't miss The Inheritors. It's hard to convey that delicious feeling when you curl into the bedcovers knowing already within a page or two, that you are going to love the book.

The story is told in two narratives. The present day narrative reveals Blanche de Rigny as an unusual activist for social justice: despite life dishing out some cruel blows she has maintained her sense of self and she is content with what she has. She is proud to take after her grandmother:

From the point of view of temperament, she's not one to be coy in her opinions to anybody who cares to listen, as she tends to think most people have tickets on themselves and completely lack modesty. With age and the mathematical absence of future which that implies, her lack of filter makes her borderline unmanageable.

They say that I take after her in that respect. No doubt that's the reason I have no boyfriend, not just the fact I'm a handicapped single parent. I'm not what you'd call a stunner, that much is true, but nor am I that ugly: I'm of average height and well-toned because of my crutches, I've got a good head of hair that I wear in a chignon, an open face and my mother's pretty blue eyes. And when I walk, a sailor once told me that I reminded him of the lazy pitching and rolling of a yacht on a shimmering sunlit sea—which, you'd have to admit, is a pretty cool description. (p.40)

But when by chance Blanche overhears a conversation about an intriguing family with the same unusual surname, Blanche sets out on a quest to discover her immediate ancestors, and is not best pleased by what she discovers. They are rapacious capitalists, and she does not approve. If she can get her hands on their money she can do good with it, but there's some branches of the family tree in her way.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2021/08/15/the-inheritors-richesse-oblige-by-hannelore-...

After Scandi noir comes banlieue noire. This deceptive little book packs a lot into its short and terse narrative. It eschews morals and emotions in favour of amoral cynicism and humour but does so in such a way as to invite the reader to conjure up the missing elements, thus heightening their impact. Similarly with its apparently unquestioning acceptance of the poverty and crime of the banlieues. A good read that stayed with me in a way that most crime novels don't. November 2020

¿Cómo, cuando eres una mujer de cincuenta y tres años que has luchado toda tu vida para mantenerte a flote mientras crías a tus dos hijas y visitas a tu anciana madre internada en una residencia, que tienes un perro, un novio policía y un empleo precario como traductora del árabe para el ministerio de Justicia transcribiendo horas y horas de conversaciones telefónicas entre los móviles intervenidos de traficantes de poca monta, terminas cruzando la línea roja que separa lo legal de lo que no lo es? Nada más sencillo: casi por azar, empiezas a mover toneladas de cánnabis, y lo haces tranquilamente, sin sentir culpa ni temor, sino más bien, digamos, con un alegre desapego... Y así es como, de la noche a la mañana, acabas convertida en la Madrina.
Hannelore Cayre ha conseguido en La Madrina —auténtico fenómeno de público y crítica dentro del panorama reciente del noir galo— hacer de su poliédrica protagonista, Paciencia Portafuegos, un irreverente, carismático e inolvidable personaje que Isabelle Huppert encarna magistralmente en la reciente adaptación cinematográfica de la novela.

Fairly lighthearted. A Parisian translator of Arabic for the drug squad who goes rogue.½

Das ist wirklich ein super Buch, das zudem schön und liebevoll gemacht ist (z.B. mit passendem Cover).
Es geht um eine mittelalte Frau, die als Arabisch-*Übersetzerin für die Polizei arbeitet. Aufgrund verschiedener kenntnisse, die sie dadurch erhält, steigt sie in den Drogenhandel ein, wo sie den Millieunamen "Die Alte" erhält. Das Buch ist wirklich toll, spannend, vergnüglich, inkorrekt, intelligent.½

Quite different to other books I have enjoyed. A little quirky, perhaps. A middle-aged French woman, who works as an interpreter for the police, becomes caught up in drug deals. Written in French, the translation was excellent as the narrative flowed easily. Quite a short novel, this one is worth dipping into if you’re after something a little different.

A special thank you to EWC Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Patience Portefeux is a 53-year-old widow who is just getting by. Working as a translator for the Paris drug squad she can barely cover the cost of university for her two daughters, as well as the care her elderly mother requires. She comes in contact with the mother of a drug trafficker through information received from the police wiretaps and is able to secure a large amount of hash. Taking on an alias as "The Godmother," Patience become financially secure—she even has to launder money.

With a fascinating woman at its core, The Godmother is an unflinching look at the gritty side of Paris in contemporary France.

What struck me about this book was the subtly and understatedness—it was clever without being trite or predictable. What Cayre makes up for with ingenuity, she alienates with the slightly formal tone and quirkiness of the book.

The story itself was well executed, however, (dare I say) lacking in morals. At times it was rather dark and twisted so if this is your bag, you will love it. Readers are taken to the underbelly of Paris—forget the glamour one associates with the City of Lights, this is the drug infested criminal underground. For me the difference between 3 and 4 stars was the slow start. It took several attempts to get into the story, but once I did, I enjoyed the book.

The Godmother:A Crime Novel
by Hannelore Cayre
Translated from French by Stephanie Smee
2019
ECW Press
4.5/5.0

At 53, Patience Portefeux is a widow, after her husbands sudden death. Patience has always relied on the men in her life--father, boyfriends, husband-to-be take care of her. Now she has to fend for herself and is responsible for her 2 daughters University fees, and her mothers retirement home is not cheap. Patience is barely making it, working as a French-Arabic translator for the police, specializing in phone taps between drug cartels. She knows what the police are doing, she knows what the cartels are doing. When Patience sees an opportunity, she takes it, intercepting a huge amount of hash sent to a cartel member who was being arrested. Now she has the hash, she has to get rid of it. She becomes known as the Godmother and was never punished for her crime.
This deserves every award it has received...the European Crime Fiction Prize and the Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere in France. It also inspired the major motion picture, Mama Weed, starring Isabelle Huppert.
Witty, dark and told with guts and vigor.

Gentil roman sur une traductrice interprète au DPJ

Même si tout se passe bien avec Dragan Dostom, son camarade de cellule, proxénète et albanais, qu'il initie aux subtilités des romans de Flaubert, pourquoi et comment Chistophe Leibowitz-Berthier, avocat - commis d'office la plupart du temps - se retrouve-il en prison? Doué en rien et bon à tout, il s'était inscrit après le bac dans ce qui était d'abord une fac de droite avant d'être une fac de droit. Plus tard il choisi un maître de stage à la mesure de son désenchantement qui ressemblait au Ioda de La Guerre des étoiles qui lui apprit que pour gagner plein d'argent, il fallait qu'il soit un gros avocat métèque méchant qui plaide avec la même niaque qu'un chien qui crève de faim. Comme le héros de la Nausée le poids de l'absurdité de sa profession lui est tombé dessus d'un coup un jour de permances au x comparutions immédiates. Pour n'a-t-il pas raccroché la robece jour-là?

literarisch kurzgefasster Telegrammstil, inhaltlich prima, ABER: erschreckend wenig Text auf so wenigen Seiten (breiter Rand, Zeilenabstand) - die denken, wir merken nix!